Music: My anti-drug

School started on the 5th and the drain is already taking place. When there’s not class, there is a ministry meeting; when there is not a ministry meeting, there is an event planning; when there isn’t an event planning, there is work to worry about, and on it goes. Even the things I used to take as just leisure have started to add stress, and personal relationships even begin to get complicated. After a solid block of classes and notifications on various committees and practices and dealing with the personal dramas of life, I often feel like walking into the Student Center and collapsing on one of the couches, falling into a stage REM sleep. Instead, I drag myself into my room, close the door, turn on my computer, and drown out the world with music.

Music has long been my anti-drug. Every time I felt an extreme emotion, I would have a song for it. When I was tired, depressed, ecstatic, in love, confused, searching, heartbroken, I would find a source of music and blast a conducive song. Yes, my preferred styles have changed; in 8th grade the first thing I would have played would be Evanescence and now it’s Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir; but I still have the same reasoning behind it. Behind music holds a certain kind of life, something different from everything else in the world. I don’t think people still quite understand why a certain mixture and alteration of pitch, rhythm, timbre, and texture makes parts of the brain light up and is pleasing to the ear, or why it makes things easier to memorize or understand, or how it impacts the soul so deeply, and I think no one will ever truly understand.

Music has always been something special to me. I grew up with music surrounding me, I sing and play instruments, and though I welcome most genres, I am rather meticulous when it comes to music quality. Listening to music comforts me, makes me feel wrapped up in the melody, the harmony, the compilation of the background instruments. Sometimes it even makes me feel closer to something, someone; makes me feel like I am not alone. Well, since this morning, I have been blasting music in my room, and yet something in me still feels empty. Even though the music helps me to a point, and calms me to a point, I have become painfully aware of an invisible border, and painfully aware of a looming feeling of aloneness. And it sucks to feel alone.

To be continued…?

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I am proud of: my ability to pick things up quickly. …Usually. I love to learn new skills. Usually I will find out how to do something online and get on learning it. That is, if I am interested in the subject. But when a person is teaching, maybe especially when a person is teaching, I can pick up things very quickly. I am currently learning Jewish dancing, and even one of the more experienced dancers said that I pick up on the moves rather quickly. I guess that’s a good thing.