There was a back road where I grew up that was barely used. It could be classified as a country road and I’m sure I have the same affinity for it as John Denver, but it didn’t actually take me home.

It didn’t take you anywhere.

Really, it was the most inconvenient road to use, but it was fun to drive on.

There was something about it that led you to a place in your mind of true freedom. You were young, free and aimlessly driving.

When people talk about the carefree days of their youth, this is the road that would spark that memory for me:

Summer time, windows down and music cranked.

These memories spark a point in our own minds we want to be taken back to–a time where you wanted for nothing, cared for nothing and had an entire future ahead of you.

Moments of pure bliss without anything weighing on the mind.

It’s a comparison between the responsibilities of life now and what we wanted life to always be. Yet, it’s an illogical tension.

We’re more content now, older, wiser and possibly even happier, but those memories and the specific feelings they evoke are lost. They’re not coming back and they can’t be retrieved.

But, there’s satisfaction in knowing that you touched pure bliss.

Which is why we hunger for them, get glimpses of them and are reminded of them through random triggers. And that has to make us happy.

As Dr. Seuss so eloquently put it:

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”