A peek inside my head

I walk into the restroom at work today, and as the door closes, the Beatles begin singing "Ticket To Ride" on the building's music system that feeds our bathrooms.

I pause a second to let the music flow over and into me, and in that moment...

...I am a kid again, going into the Florida theater in St. Petersburg on a Saturday afternoon for the RC Cola six-bottle-cap movie extravaganza--cartoons and a double feature.  I'm about to see Help for the first time.

John Lennon is singing that I've got to hide my love away, and I ache with pain even as I realize that I have no real clue what love is, I just know that I better hide mine away, because every time I smile at a girl she reacts like she's eaten a bug.

I'm sixteen and my first love has dumped me because I loved her too much, and I don't understand how that is possible, how can I love someone and not love them that much?

I'm myself again, and I know I'm less intense now, and I wonder for a spring sigh of an instant if sixteen-year-old me didn't learn that lesson too well.

I shake my head, because I'm at work, I'm late to present at a vision meeting, and I have to focus on that task, not love, not the Beatles, not "Ticket To Ride," not what I lost, not any of that.



It's late now, and I'm playing the Help album.  Alone in my office, the music transporting me and melting away the years, it all comes back to me, and my heart aches again, aches so much I fear my chest might split, though I can't even list all that it aches for.