Musical Nostalgia.

"Wheel" with the windows down just took me back to this time six years ago. Freshman fall at NC State. Cool weather, late nights, and far enough into the semester to be comfortable with the place.

I was the same, but different. Eighteen, mop-topped, a little preppier, but still smiling a lot. NC State was in front of me rather than behind, and my biggest concerns involved getting football tickets and stocking the room with Easy Mac and Ramen.

"Heavier Things" was a constant that could be heard from my open room or the two 12 inch sub-woofers in my Explorer, and I could relate to the music more than ever now that I was on my own. I was learning lessons and making mistakes and decisions away from home, and the songs on the record picked me up or gave me advice when I needed it.

I can still remember playing "Clarity" for the first time on my laptop in Windows Media Player, before my iTunes days. It was real, and it hit me from the beginning. College was new and crazy, but the song helped me brush the worries away and enjoy that particular moment in my life, because at that time there's no way I could have known just how fast six years could fly by. Crazy, eh?

As much as I love the rest of Mayer's music, I'll always be a sucker for the nostalgia that "Heavier Things" brings me when I listen to it at night in the fall. It took me back again tonight, and still gave me the hope and comfort it did when I was a little younger and different, but had my heart in the right place, as I feel I do now...

With as fast as things move and as uncertain as things are these days, I'll take that as a good thing.

D.