Music For the Soul

No post yesterday due to getting up and heading out with the kiddos for appointments and some shopping.  I got up too late, brought on by staying up FAR too late.  Which is something I've been doing a lot, lately.  Staying up until all hours of the night.  It's the ultimate ME time. The kids are all sound a sleep, the house is quiet, and with the weather the way it's been lately... it's been great to sit on the patio with a blanket (can you believe that?) and read or listen to music and just clear my mind.

Being that it's the summer, I feel like going to bed early ruins the whole notion of being off work.  Who goes to bed early when they don't have to?  So, I've been taking it to extreme levels by staying up until 4AM.  Doing nothing but basking in the quiet.  The ability to let my mind wander, think about things I don't get to think about much when life is happening at its normal pace.

Night before last, the quiet was almost deafening, so I turned to my savior when my mind starts to wander a little too much:  My music.

I have always loved music.  For much more than just having noise to sing and dance to.  Music is a connection to my emotions.  I have certain music preferences for certain moods... like many people do, I suppose.  But music also lets my mind calm, lets me start making sense of stuff that's jumbled in my head, and gives me a sense of security.  Like the words in a song can respond to questions that I have, decisions I need to make, or how to tackle a certain problem.

I know that sounds crazy, but it's true.

Some people have a magic eight ball... I have the Shuffle button on my iPhone.

I face whatever I'm thinking about by hitting that button and listening to whatever song comes out.  And, if that's not crazy enough, the even crazier part is that there has NEVER been a time where a song didn't come on that didn't help.  In some way or another.

Then, there are those songs that trigger memories and thoughts I wasn't even having.  Sometimes hitting that Shuffle button can bring a wave of old memories back to the surface.  That happened night before last.  I'm sitting on the patio, relaxing and singing along to my music and a song comes on I haven't heard in a while.  A song that has been buried in my extensive music library, somehow escaping the random plays.  And the minute it started playing, a whirl of emotion brewed up inside.  Just BAM...out of nowhere, I'm hurled back in time to a life that was amazing and daring and crazy...and that's when tears brimmed out of my eyes.  For no reason whatsoever, other than being plummeted back to a simpler time when the only care I had was what outfit I needed to wear the next day.

And it's not as if life is terribly hard now.  But, just tracing back some of those steps... remembering some of the things I did...it just brought out emotions inside of me that I didn't even realize I was holding on to.  And, I had a good cry.  I say a "good cry" because that's what it was.  A cleansing, get it out of my system, purge any pent up stuff I had hidden away, and let it all out.  The music was by my side helping me along.

I spent the rest of the night (early morning hours) going through my playlist and YouTube hunting down songs.. and it was such a great experience.  A trip down memory line via YouTube.  Good stuff.

Last night, I decided to redo all of my playlists.  I realized that if I really wanted to get back in to running again, I needed music that was going to carry me, motivate me, inspire me to continue.  The power really is in the music... whether it be the beat, the melody, the words... the music really does have the ability to keep me moving in the right direction.

Today, the weather is cool...once again.  And as soon as this post is over I'm heading out to the walking trails.  I have no set plans on how long I'll be gone, how much distance I want to cover... I'm just going to go and keep going until I'm done.  It's been a long time since I've had this much desire to get out and move...exercise.  But, I need to AND want to.  A very good combination.

Which is why I'm gong to cut it off right now... sitting here is doing me no good.  Time to GET MOVING!!