Clearly..,..the past circles back around

So, today there is this.....a bottle of Clearly Canadian Mountain Blackberry that I bought at the World Market here in LA today.  I knew this was hitting stores this year once they began production again but I haven't seen it.  It was like some burst of wonderfully reminiscent excitement seeing that on the shelf....seeing all the flavors on their shelves and wondering which one had been my favorite all those years ago?  Mountain Blackberry or Country Raspberry?  I think it was the blackberry but I know I loved the raspberry too.  

It takes me back to many nights.  Getting out of the black car my guy drove at the time or his best friend's car and hitting up that gas station for one of these.  Hanging out in the parking lot and drinking your bottle of your favorite flavor for the night and talking and laughing.  Making plans for the next day. Not caring what time we got home or who had to be at work at 7 am when sometimes it was 2 am and we were still out.  Sometimes I wish it had just stayed that way.  Things change.  Well, everything changes actually. Makes me want to send him that picture and say, hey remember these? One night in particular I remember sliding down that car and sitting on the concrete of the parking lot and having him hand me my CC bottle. Remembering how further on down the road called my life how I went by myself in gas stations and bought one or two of these and thought back to nights of khaki duck head shorts and flowered shirts, car dealership signs, LA Story, purple bow ties, sitting outside the movie theater on the sidewalk, and a million more memories, putt putt, purple passion drinks, Life is a Highway blaring on the radio and kisses in the back seat.  

Memories I'll always have and I think two things about this.  

1.  I've always thought what good are all those great memories if someone isn't around anymore to make more?

2. I need to let the past go.  Things would be so much easier in some cases.  This I can handle and look back fondly on tonight.  It was what it was and all those fun times make me smile to think about still.  Do I wish it had ended different?  Who doesn't when they had something that fun and good?

But we all grow up and those things we did with such carefree abandon when we were 21 or 21+ are what made us who we are.  All that happened for a reason.  

At some point I stopped buying those and stopping thinking about them too.  Then when I did remember they weren't around anymore.  The fact that 20+ years later they're back says something about the circles that exist....the way things come back around.