Finding the Music
I grew up with the music. I heard it everywhere. I thought everybody was like this. We all had our own internal soundtrack.
My life was defined by the music. And yet it was limited. Imagine my surprise when I got older and was introduced to more music. There were whole worlds of music that I’d never fathomed could exist.
I soaked up all that I could. I collected from friends around the globe. My tastes were eclectic. They ranged far and wide. It wasn’t a wanna-be thing either, I truly loved each and every one of the songs I heard. I adored wizard rock and jpop, german metal and country, classic rock and shoegaze. I delighted in hitting shuffle, play all on the computer. It all gave me a larger library to pull from and create the soundtrack in my head.
And I lost the music. Where for years there had been melodies, trills, and harmonies there was nothing. While it felt sudden when I realized it, it was a slow process. As I grew more and more unhappy, more depressed, more assured that my life had no joy the music within died. My heart broke the day I realized the music was fully gone. There wasn’t even a sad bass line to plod along to. There was only silence.
The silence was deafening in it’s way. And yet it was far more welcoming than the hateful voices that soon filled my head.
They delighted in listing out my faults. Minute by minute I knew exactly what I’d done wrong, how I messed up. I was a sad, pathetic excuse for a human. I failed at being a girl, at being a wife (twice), at being anything of worth.
I would have given anything for the voices to stop.
I tried to silence the voices with music, gaming, exercise, anything I could think of. Even permanent solutions … The lack of music drove me to it.
Afterward I gave up hope and resigned myself to a life without that music. At least I had the memory of that glorious orchestra that had been my constant companion. It was hollow consolation but it was all I had.
How was I to know it’d come back with just a few text messages exchanged?
That’s how it started though. Here and there I had blips of sounds. It was like sunlight filtering through the leaves, sprinkling hope in the dark.
We talked more. The music returned more. The relationship didn’t grow so much as slam into being. But it was perfect. He encourages me to simply be me. I never question his love because it is apparent in every word he says, every action he takes. He is not dedicated to just me, but to us.
The music fills my head again. I wake with music in my head and as I drift off to sleep it is there to send me on my way. Even on cloudy days it is there, dispelling some of the gloom.
He is healing me. He is teaching me that I can be treated like a person, that my feelings and thoughts matter. And he has brought the music back to my life.