I woke up this morning feeling like a lead weight at the bottom of the ocean. Head pounding, muscles aching, it was going to take a miracle to get me out of bed. I'm not sick; it's just one of those days. I don't experience them often, or ever really, but today is one of those days.
I've got some things on my mind. They seem big to me, but in the scheme of man-kind and the planet I suppose they're not all that serious. Nobody is dying; it's just life stuff. Whatever. But today it's weighing on me more heavily than most days.
I got out of bed (thanks primarily my bladder) well over an hour after my alarm jolted me from whatever all-too realistic, but completely non-sensical dream my subconscious had whisked me away to. I'm an organized (teetering near anal-retentive) person so I already had my outfit planned for the day. Fortunately, my morning mood corresponded with my evening outfit-planning mood so I threw on the pre-planned black pants and oversized black-and-white knit sweater, grabbed my keys, honked at a few bad drivers and found myself sipping two-scoops-too-strong office coffee from my handgun mug at my desk by 10am.
Then I got the email I knew was coming. It was to do with the feelings that I was already having and it added a few ounces of weight to the lead suit I had strapped on under my striped sweater. Anger, sadness, fear, confusion, denial, self-pitty, inspiration, solution. With these emotions swirling through my head I tried to get the corresponding words out on (digital) paper. I was typing fragmented sentences, redundant thoughts and overly dramatic and implausible worst case scenarios to how things would play out. Like a skipping CD, I was experiencing irregular rapid-fire loop thoughts.
Click. iTunes opens. Click click. I pushed play on a song that's tragic in its lyrics and beautiful in its music - the most emotional type of song there is. Tears slipped from my eyes. Happiness, love, contentedness, comfort, security. That's what this song made me feel. The tears were for feelings from the past that I crave to have once again. Silence.
Scroll up, scroll down, long scroll down. Click click. I started a song that I know every word to. A song whose lyrics are of an emotional struggle but whose music is upbeat with an overall tone of finding peace. I turned it up. I sang along as loud as I could (in my head of course; I'm at work after all). My clouded thoughts began to clear. Silence.
Quick scroll up. Click click. Now it's another song I love, but whose lyrics I've never really listened to closely, or cared to learn for that matter. I've only heard the music. The music inspires me. It reminds me of warm summer afternoons with the windows open, planning what's to come - planning for later that evening, three months from now or five years down the road, it's irrelevant. I began bopping my head in tune with the drum beat. The corners of my mouth involuntarily tweaked upwards. I was somewhere else. I was outside of me. I was down at the water's edge tasting the salty air on my lips, I was eating a hamburger in the sunshine, I was getting ready to go out for drinks.
I feel better. Not perfect, but better. I know the answers will come and solutions will be found - that's how life works. And this morning music worked its mysterious ways all the way to my soul, getting me that much closer.
