Music = The Love of My Life

I'm really not joking. It really is. I mean, I'm not saying there's not a person who I may or may not be realizing is inching towards that title too. Which is a rarity for me. Its taken me quite a while, but for the first time in my life I've found someone who makes me feel close to the way music makes me feel. We'll have to see as time goes on, but I take this as progress. Maybe even a sign that I'm growing up. Maybe.



But music, ah music. You really are the love of my life. The one thing that I have truly come to depend upon in good and bad times. No matter what, there is a moment, a lyric, a sound, something that helps to define the place I'm at in my life and to help put things into perspective for me. Its not a personal thing or a statement that people can't do that for me. But music is that force for me.



For as long as I can remember music has always been a major part of my life in one form or another. I grew up during the birth and rise of MTV. I was the 3 year old sitting there tapping my feet along to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean (My foot starts involuntarily tapping EVERY TIME I hear that bass line) and my own little scandalous moment of imitating Madonna's dance from her "Like a Virgin" video (My mom proceeded to turn the channel every time the video came on, I apparently had the moves down a little too well for her to handle).



I loved all music as a kid and ate up every single sound I could get my little hands on. My parents, being the age difference (20 years) and the background differences (Dad = White (Irish decent), Mom = Hispanic (Colombian)), had very different tastes. When my dad would drive me to school, we listened to oldies (like 50s doo wop and 60s) and country. Secret: I still love Reba McIntire to this day...I know, I know, its country, but I do. Johnny Cash is a freaking Icon, have you heard his music? Hank Williams...I could go on. Anyways, my mom would pick me up in the afternoon and I got my radio flipping habits from her. She never stayed on one channel. She listened to current pop, rock, then flip it to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles or R&B or Top Forty. I'd sit there just bopping away, learning lyrics and that was my kind of day. It was the days when I stole my mom's old small stereo that had a cassette player, record player and radio on it, and hooked it up in my room so I could play my Rainbow Brite Record (Yes, I had a Rainbow Brite Record) for 15 hours straight and listen to....wait for it...New Kids on the Block. You got the right stuff....baaaaaaaaaby...(Don't judge me, it was 1988, we are all allowed to make mistakes at the age of 6.) OH, and stealing my mom's Billy Joel tapes and Fleetwood Mac records...and Stevie Wonder too. I have problems.

Music has always helped me get through the good. I mean that's easy enough, you find an upbeat song, dance around your room or wherever and you just let loose. Its the tough times...the tough moments where nothing seems to make you feel better, jokes don't work, sometimes even hugs aren't enough. At least they aren't for me. Its when I put on my iPod or start looking through my CDs, just trying to find that one song, that one lyric that I need to hear to remind me that things are going to be ok, you know, when I've tried to remind myself that 1000 times, and I just can't seem to get it through my head. It was my knee jerk reaction in 7th grade when my dad lost his job, I just ran to my room, shut the door and jacked up Matchbox Twenty's Yourself or Someone Like You and just collapsed on the floor staring at the ceiling. It amazingly enough was Fleetwood Mac's Rumours that I turned to when my dad had a heart attack my junior year of HS. I know, but Rumours is an amazing record. I HIGHLY recommend listening to it. And I don't always listen to an album because I'm looking for those lyrics. Sometimes, I put the music on and I just get involved in the melodies and the sounds and whatever else makes up the music and it takes my mind off of whatever troubles I have. It gives me time to re-group, so that I can think and figure out how I want to deal with something. Other times I hit just the right song that brings out the right emotions in me, whether its joy or sadness and its therapeutic and I get everything out of my system and I'm ok. I feel better and I can deal.

Music is just this entity. I don't even think I can put it into words. Its just something I truly understand on all levels. Its the one thing I can talk about for hours on end, read about for days, experience for a lifetime and still want to know more! Truthfully, its probably an obsession, but its a better obsession than cocaine, so i'm gonna go with music.

This is why I couldn't answer the question of my favorite music. Music is such an experience for me that trying to narrow it down to my favorite albums or bands or whatever could very well take me forever. And I could be listing for forever. Like that whole question "What's your number 1 top desert island album?"...I can't answer that question. I've tried to narrow it. No success as of yet. Once I come up with the answer, I'll let you know.