what price, nostalgia?

Staring at a menu for an Italian restaurant placed in my hands by my mother, and being informed that we were ordering in this evening, I was tossed back into a wave of memories and a conclusion that leaves me rather weak and beaten.

The simplicity of this Italian restaurant's menu was a contrast to the vast selection of pasta and sauce combinations found upon the menu of a certain Tutto Pasta, and therefore I was instantly reminded of it. That dark restaurant with so many complicated levels and rooms and a lot of tables shoved into awkward spaces and servers with their club shirts on and the smell of bread and olive oil. I can say I've been there more than five times. But the occasions- that crazy Valentines day stunt we came up with to ensure we were not dateless; Bethany's 21st and the silent acquiensence of the waitress to assume we were all 21 (well for the most part we were); Jerry's 21st--I lived through each of these evenings and many others in a flash and realized suddenly that that dear Madison is lost to me, that I can never live those times again except in shoddy replications that I force upon myself. That in four years I won't know anyone left there, and it will become just another city, another place in the fold, just as San Diego is for me now. I remember missing the memories here too so desperately as a freshman, and now what? It's another place and there's no one here to share it with. As much as I don't want Madison to be that way, I am slowly accepting the fact that what I love so much about it is not itself, but the memories that are attached to places and people.

Of course I dearly love Madison on its own--a quirky little city with its hypocrisies and contradictions--a place where I always know where to go to eat and where to find friends. A place with young kids, a place with old hippies, smoky bars, good music, unpredictable and annoying weather, lakes, beer...
The fact is I will never be a college student again. Sure, I'll be a graduate student, but only for a little while, and then what? Do I move again? Do I start completely over and trek across country for job offers that dissipate upon arrival? Do I spend another two months lonely and sad, friendless? Do I worship the memory of the city I have left?
This insecurity has left me exhausted, and of course it stems from the lack of gainful employment or even otherwise useful activity. It almost makes me vow to settle, to find a place to call permanent home. Because I don't want to go through this torture again, this insincerity of living that beats at me day in and day out. I want to start making new memories, and have those memories remain safely hidden in the day to day business of making even more.

Of course life doesn't always work that way, and I am fully understanding of this. Things will always change, and I as a musician will always be forced to change, to move to the job, to be willing to follow it wherever it may appear. So it appears to be a shoddy choice of employment for me, no? Me the stable cancer, a slow moving crab that rejects change and loves to stay at home and surround myself with the good things. Yep. On this thing I can say that the zodiac rings a bit true. Silly eh? Well there have been sillier things. And I realize now that in order to discover your mistakes, sometimes you have to make them first.