Play, play, play. Skip, skip, skip.

After my workout tonight, I determined to update my workout playlist. It was suspiciously lacking in certain raise-the-roof songs. And so I started from the top, from the A's, and went through my library.

I had forgotten how much music I love and long for until I realized, as I clicked through and sampled old loves, that I suddenly wanted to listen to everything I loved all at once. I couldn't decide what to stick with, what to play all the way through, because I wanted to play so much all the way through. Albums, whole albums that I wanted to swoon to like I have before. But all at once. I don't have time to listen to 20 hours of continuous music tonight.

It was also startling to see that it's been over a year since I last listened to some of these songs. They still feel so present to me, so dear, so familiar, that a year feels like a week or two.

After the run-through, I pressed shuffle, as I often do when I want to hear what I love but can't decide what to focus on, start with, commit to. And then, as is iTunes' want, shuffle only wanted to play the songs that it always wants to play--songs that I like but don't love. Skip, skip, skip, skip, skip.

Sometimes I just want to be 16 again in my room, sitting on the floor in front of my stereo with albums on repeat. Matchbox 20. Backstreet Boys. The Wallflowers. Or 19, when my tastes began to expand. Keane. John Mayer. Howie Day. Or 20, when I discovered Limewire and downloaded song upon song of new music or rare songs of my favorites. Or all of these days in between, days of music in the car and through the apartment. Tired Pony in the car in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Snow Patrol on my last drive across Kansas. James Taylor on I-26 to Beaufort. The Beatles all over Manhattan, all over Topeka.

And now I want to read everything I love. All at once. How can I choose?