“Time of Our Lives” by Tyrone Wells is a song that is filled with joy, hope for the future, and a touch of sadness. When I first heard and danced to it I felt the same about it. I thought it was going to be forever crystalized in my mind with those emotions attached to it, and for a while it was. As that chapter of my life closed, the new one slowly began to go in a different path than expected. These events shifted and morphed my feelings about this song into a mix of the old and the new, pain, grief, confusion, and anger. Now when I hear it, I am drawn into an ever-shifting reverie of my last moments of dancing on a stage.
The first lyric reminds me, that the chapter has ended. The second, that I am now living in the one that followed, but somehow, it’s not what it was supposed to be. “Time of Our Lives” by Tyrone wells was once a hopeful final moment for me and those I viewed as family, but now it is a painful reminder of what has been lost. When I hear it, it allows me to step back out of the bitterness and pain that followed. Back to the moment when I last moved in sync with my best friends without the glare of hatred and sorrow. Wells states that “the time has come for letting go,” and momentarily my bitterness seeps in, but I push it back the idea that the lyric is a command and focus on the time when it was a statement.
Next is the chorus. It reminds me that those fifteen years are over, but also of the bonds that we made in those fifteen years of near constant togetherness. “We have had the time of our lives…” and now we have to go on to write new stories, but these stories will be without each other. The next laments how “hard [it is] to walk away from the best of days,” but I am painfully reminded of how good it was to have them as my friends from childhood to that moment.
Another set of new verses to remind me of how much has changed and will continue to change. Now It repeats, the chorus. We have had the time of our lives, the stories we will write, the faces left behind, and again, it reminds me of how hard it was to walk away. I think of how difficult it is to keep walking and not remain trapped in the clutches of the grudge that I can’t let go.
The bridge. It hurts, but it fulfills its purpose. It is a crossing for me. A crossing from bitterness and confusion to at least a moment of appreciation and love for the moments we had. Wells sings desperately of how we hold on tight to the memories that will never die. I am reminded of the desperation and fervor of our hands in each other’s grip as we danced for the last time together. The tears that flowed and the blurry smiles that were shared. I am swept up in the memory, and I can smile when thinking about it now.
The chorus plays one final time. The smile leaves my face. The final lyric is, “I’m glad you have been my friend / In the times of our lives.” I have been ripped from the reverie, and all I can think on the final notes of music is one question. Am I?