Curb Treasures Reminded Me There's Still Semblances Of "Normal"

It is 2020, which will likely go down in history as one of the most strange, difficult, and erratic years of my entire life. This isn't just because of the election year and it's definitely not just because of my divorce. It's not even strange because of "Rona," or Covid-19, or "Coronavirus," or whatever we're calling it this week. Rather, 2020 has become the year that all the social norms and walks of society were forced into quarantine and any idea of "normal" disappeared.

Post-divorce in January, I dove into all walks of healing head first. I kept myself scheduled and busy with personal therapy, CODA meetings, work, working out as much as I could, learning about cooking, budgeting for single-hood, and keeping my daughter as busy and distracted as possible, all while trying to be completely empathetic that I just changed her entire world.

Before I knew, along came March and I had plans galore. I was extremely not into any idea of celebrating my birthday as it was, and then...Coronavirus. Coronavirus was the news since after Christmas, but early 2020 was reported as being mostly in China. By St. Patrick's Day it came to the U.S. along with toilet paper hoarding, grocery insanity, and creepy levels of panicking public.

After living through Hurricane Irma, the freaked out Floridians don't phase me, but this was a new level of weird. Once they shut down schools, then the daycare programs, I took the kid into the office with me and said, "I'm taking my PC and setting up at home." I didn't leave it for much of a discussion. That was my out and I took it.

Since then, I've been home and honestly completely loving it. All those memes that say, "I was social distancing before it was cool," are so very much me. Don't get me wrong, I love a good girls night out and dinner out and time away, but definitely not as much as I love being home alone in my space. Now this is truly my space.

The divorce has actually allowed me to be alone, and in a safe place, which is a new luxury I never thought possible. I've had to become careful about how to redistribute my time. I only had a few nights free and never a full day to myself. The pandemic quickly changed that and I had time to accomplish things, many things in face.

House projects are always a thing when you're a homeowner and having the time and space to create and accomplish, and the safety of doing it with no judgement or criticism was huge. And thus the projects and ideas began.

I used a grout pen on all my tile floors after failing at grout scrubbing. I built a cinder-block staircase after having the deck ripped out from the screened in porch to the yard. I reorganized and deep cleaned. I started reaching out to people I'd lost touch with and had real conversations, which led to blessings of hand me downs that gave me other projects. I repurposed what we had on hand and just kept reinventing my space. 

I recently discovered the joys of spray paint. I fully understand why graffiti is a thing. I made two nightstands for my bedroom out of what my friend called "curb treasures." This means something someone leaves to go to the trash but you turn into your own personal treasure and grab it from said curb. The whole project was fun for my daughter and I as we got pretty creative with it. 

I'd hoarded this tile from a previous employer convinced one day I would use it. Turns out I was correct. That tile gave me a perfectly quiet morning and my daughter was super into making her nightstand for mommy's room really cool looking. I love so much that she made me a treasure.

 

A friend of mine is giving me more treasures and hand me downs, hence more projects to come. I'm both incredibly excited and, true to form, anxious about getting it all here and set up, although it's an amazing distraction from life's current stresses. 

I took a hand me down IKEA desk we'd been using in the kitchen, dragged the kid to Lowe's and we got spray paint and a few other things. We'd take it from white to a kind of deep blue and I'd have a real desk and work space instead of my dining room table.

Next, I began the hunt for an office chair. I'm not much for Facebook anymore, especially in the wake of recent drama with my ex-husband but my office cell phone has a social media account so I use that one to shop on Marketplace. I found an office chair in my town and talked them down to $15, which was a killer price! Go me!

Well, such as life, the seller just never messaged back and took the listing down. Onto the next search and behold, I unearthed a cute thrift shop in the next town over that had 3 options and in my price range! I just so happened to have time to go grab one on my lunch break I was excited. It's the little things anymore.

I never go anywhere without GPS. I get lost so easily and get very anxious in unknown territory so even though I kind of knew where I was going, I put the address in. I had a mental picture of what area and my GPS ended up routing me this weird and winding way. I kept thinking to myself, "Why is it taking me this way."

I turned into a neighborhood and I saw something on the side of the road! I saw a white filing drawer or perhaps a discarded part of a desk set, just sitting on the curb. I got excited and thought it would fit my big ass office printer perfectly. I didn't stop, but instead kept driving. I told myself, okay the chair is more important so go grab that first, come back the exact way and if it's still there, just grab it!

I went and bought a faded pink office chair that could make me feel tall for $15 and tossed it in my SUV. I found the exact way back and the 3-drawer white furniture piece was still there. I pulled over, put my flashers on and went to grab it! YAY! Curb treasure! What an awesome Wednesday, right?

It was in relatively good shape. I got it close to the car and it was just heavy and awkward enough I just couldn't do it alone. Cars were slowly passing me. I was looking around the neighborhood kind of like "Uhhh, anybody?" Then I reminded myself that I was always much stronger than I thought, but also it wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't take it home. It was then as I tried once last time to muscle it by myself, that a nice older woman on her walk said, "Would you like some help with that? I don't think you can get that in your car by yourself."

Of course I welcomed her kindness and made sure she wasn't about to hurt herself or have me hurting myself and we did it! She was so kind and I got back in my car, sweaty and smiling with two, new to me treasures and suddenly all of the weird vibes from the past week, hell from the past few months, flew out the window.

These times are strange and we're without the comfort and distraction of going to the gym, events and gatherings with friends. I guess I needed the reminder that there were still great people, strangers nonetheless, around to be supportive and helpful. To be clear, I've felt no shortage of support in the divorce arena and have texted and chatted with friends none stop. I've renewed some old relationships that have literally been a saving grace for me, and I've really grown into even better relationships with other friends this year. I think I needed a reminder that the world wasn't as broken as it looked on the news.

My random curb treasure helper just reminded me that we may never go back to "normal" but some semblances of normal are still around. It was also another affirmation that I belong at home with my new home office set up!

In more fun I still had an extra can of spray paint I was going to return but I covered that baby right up to match! My neighbor helped me get it into the garage but I got it up and into the house this morning all by myself like the warrior I am. 

Staying busy and having projects feels like my next phase in healing, with the proper soundtrack of course. And having a real office set up feels like my next phase of a pandemic. No matter what the world brings, at least I can turn curb trash to curb treasure with a little help from a stranger, a neighbor, and all the spray paint!

Singing Bowl Sanity

So yesterday was a bad day, hence no post. We all have bad days, it is an essential part of life. Ironically is was not the first time I'd experienced this particular kind of bad day, but it was the first time that it didn't sink the entirety of my day.

I had sent a text to a friend that I was "coming to terms with certain realities." The response was that she had no idea what that means. So here goes:

There is a freedom in acceptance of circumstances, even disappointing ones. I've spent the last few years idling in fear. Fear of what? Loss of all different makes and models. Yesterday though, I addressed those fears, looked them in the eye and said, "Bring it."

I've worked unbelievably hard to get where I am today. There is a part of me that gets tearful at the thought that it could go away and I would have to completely restart my life at this point but another part of me that no longer has the will to allow that to hold me back. Looking at those insecurities and fears and literally saying to myself, "That actually wouldn't be the worst, because you can clearly handle anything," is the nicest thing I've done for myself in a very, very long time.

Yesterday I had a heartbreaking conversation with my longest and oldest friend who lives overseas. This is a person who has championed me no matter what, and has never told me what to do or how to live my life but rather just was there when I needed him. I told him I was having a bad day and I needed to talk. I asked if he could message me when he was free. He messaged me back immediately.

I word vomited my entire heart onto a screen and his reaction was beyond supportive, beyond encouraging, and exactly what I needed. I felt bad pouring all of that out and when I admitted even that, his response was "I'm impressed." He gave me instant validation that it took a lot to say or type or admit it all and that he was there for wherever things went. It was an internet hug of the best kind.

Ironically I had made plans with a good friend to go to a Singing Bowl Meditation class at a yoga center for last night. I had arranged a sitter and was completely open to whatever I got from the experience. The two people that knew the reality of my situation that I had told I was going to meditation and may just cry the entire class, said, "That may be the perfect thing for you today and it may be no mistake that is where you will end up this evening."

They were completely correct. Honestly, I fell deep in love with hippie culture at a very young age. I miss Oregon, but I just couldn't handle the cold, gray rain with what was happening in my life at the time. Everything else about Oregon I completely love, and all of the hippie, yoga, realign, live organically and purely stuff, I always embraced.

When my friend invited me she said "You're literally the only friend I can take." I laughed because I didn't know if that was a compliment? Turns out it was a big one. 

Don't get me wrong, the class itself is weird. The instructor is in a class all her own, but my brain was turned off by force of sound and it was amazing. There were moments where my mind would get frenzied and then some sound or chant or hum would shut it down. It was perfect.

I left feeling a new wave of "rested," went home, had some tea and got some much-needed rest. I'm being incredibly calm and patient with my body today and am feeling more aware. It's one of those things that I definitely wish I could attend regularly but generally just feel blessed for having the experience at all. 

There was absolutely no mistake in that being the end of my emotional day. There were moments were I felt proud of myself for not reacting as I had in the past to the events that led to my near-mental collapse, and it reaffirmed the work I have been doing. There were regretful moments of "how did I get here?" Regardless, the singing bowls seemingly saved my sanity for the day and that is quite a powerful accomplishment.

Being forced to be still and embrace the chakras and heart centers and light? It was necessary and healing for my trauma. Listening to the calming and unusual sounds and just releasing some tension? Beyond necessary. I felt all the stress and I felt it dissipate.

It was a great gift from a friend that I didn't even know how desperately I needed and I feel so lucky to have been invited. I woke up ready to just take things as they come and not just face, but embrace the new realities.

Right now my body is physically challenging me and I'm in the midst of an intensive diet and eating habit change. Mentally I'm having to regroup, rebuild and prepare for anything. Emotionally I'm taking literally one minute at a time. The daily goal is just to not cry.

This is what I know: I will not be saying yes to much through the end of the year in terms of extra plans. I am in self preservation mode and can't let obligatory things get in the way of my sanity. I will drown it out with singing bowls if needed. 

I may not be posting as much, but will definitely do what I can for the remainder of the year. I will continue though, because that is what we do. We continue. So away I go. 

Hurdles In Healing

I've spent how many blog posts waxing on about emotional, spiritual and mental healing? Okay maybe let's not count those. What about other healing though?

You scrape a knee, hangnail or stub a toe? Maybe you do some neosporin and a bandaid? Everyone is different. After my illness last week, boy do I have to heal. And here is where I am with it, which of course has me thinking in all terms of metaphors and other themes.

I'm totally not back to my full self yet. I'm careful with food, coffee, treats and so on because I'm super sensitive to everything with my body right now. I had a really rough workout this morning because I woke up with stomach cramps not knowing if I should go or not. I had to take it easy working out.

I'm not a "take it easy" kind of gal. I constantly push myself. I always want a good challenge so patience with healing is not me. This morning I realized that whatever my body is going through, everything is telling me to SLOW DOWN.

It's almost too funny, the irony of my body literally rejecting going back to life and getting sick the night we returned home. We pretend these things are inconvenient coincidences, but maybe they are legit signs to pay attention to. Did we have such a great vacation, one that ended weirdly with a little bit of a disagreement with my husband and an uneasy ride home that my body completely rebelled against coming back to routines?

You can speculate whatever you want but I'm more attune to the idea that emotionally, mentally and spiritually I have more power over my body than I think. What do personal trainers say? "Mind over matter?" There is truth in the cliches.

We go to therapy to heal mental wounds, but with physical ailments we take medicines and get shots and rarely let our bodies rest. I'll give it to my 6 year old but she was completely right, forcing myself to go back to work that following morning was not a good idea. I needed the rest.

So what are my hurdles in physical healing? They are ironically mostly mental. Now I second guess on what I may have overlooked within my body before my nasty illness overtook my day to day. I'm now wondering what every cramp and moment of discomfort is telling me. Is this a new "normal?' Will my body go back to pre-illness regularity?

We joke that getting older sucks and that what we got away with in our teen and twenties is long gone but it's completely true. I had a better metabolism and very lax caffeine effects compared to now. I can't have iced tea in the evening or it messes with my sleep. I can't drink too much alcohol, which means more than two glasses in one sitting with food, or it can ruin me an entire day. And now, I'm pretty careful about what I'm allowing my tummy to wrestle.

See if I Google it I probably have a tapeworm or something insane. So I sit here hypothesizing and worrying about never getting back to what I thought was normal. Then as I'm trying to figure out what to write about today, I realized I need to embrace whatever my body is telling me and that this may be my new version of normal.

Last night in the homework war, uncharacteristic to my normal self, I used the most calm tone ever talking about the tasks. I refocused her. I didn't yell if she had some crying jag outburst. I just said, okay, "If you need to feel your feelings that's fine, but if you can persist and get through what we need to do, you can spend your evening the way you asked me to earlier. Otherwise those privileges will be lost." It seemed to work much better.

Everything around me, is screaming "SLOW DOWN." Besides my body physically telling me, my anxiety, and things going on in my personal life, I'm just very much yielding to the probability that the new "shake up" in the routine, means taking things so much slower instead of some ridiculous race to get stuff done.

I'm learning to heal all over now. I'm completely in it. We are a couple months away from 2020. All of the motivational things and funny memes are coming out about it's entrance into our calendars. What am I feeling? I think 2019 has been incredible growth. Nothing is perfect and everything in my life is a current work in progress; completely in flux. But I'm not miserable, depressed or overly anxious. I'm making things work. I'm taking things as they come. And that is huge.

Healing may not be linear, which is fact, but I'm just continuing to heal, all over. It is completely encompassing me. There will be many hurdles in healing. There always are. But today, in the midst of the stomach cramps and gurgles, the morning out of routine and the workout that was super difficult on my body and lungs, I just realized "Okay, here I am, healing and working it out one step at a time." I can only do what I can with what I'm dealt. What a revelation! And so I soldier on!

Mentality Matters

Yesterday in my last 90 minutes of work, a particularly prickly contributor I work with, sent me something to edit and send out and it sat in my inbox longer than he would prefer. He didn't actually call me out on it, I had felt badly because I was distracted with other work things.

Internally I was worried he would call and chew me out, or maybe a boss would get pissed about it. Immediately after I published it, I started my "I'm sorry" email. I started to type it twice and then stopped myself. Why? Because apologizing for being human, doing other aspects of my job and not being at his beck and call, didn't seem worth it. Would it even make me feel better?

I stopped and thought, why am I apologizing? This stuff happens. It's called life. What do I have to apologize for? Oh nothing really, but missing something that could have used more timely attention but it all went out anyway. I calmed myself down and got myself home.

It was my mentality about it that made it bigger than it was. Huh, quite a novel idea that it's about your personal mentality towards an issue that makes it "extra." This isn't a new idea. Some people carry this genius with them and don't have such anxious upsets and responses towards things, but for me this faint "A-ha" moment gave me pause.

I got home with my tiny person and got my evening rolling and by bed time had gone to bed forgetting about the whole issue. I woke up, remembered I had to get more blood drawn and thought "Shit, I might hear about that late update." After a successful blood draw I got to work late and heard all of nothing about it. Not a word.

When the contributor's number came across the call ID I was sure it was a verbal lashing waiting to happen. Nope. He said nothing. So any amount of upset and stress was self-inflicted and I pushed my mentality towards other things and it all turned out just fine. Huh. I may be onto something.

See my mentality can be volatile and fragile. Some days I can handle all of life's curve balls with perfect precision in hitting back or catch and pitch. Some days I cry over a burrito, or because I can't find a straw. Some people blame lady troubles or sensitivity, but mostly it is my mentality that makes all the difference.

When I mentally "let go" of stuff, it makes me feel legitimately lighter. Like when I stopped feeling badly for not being an amazing volunteer, I felt like I lost five pounds. I was like, "Oh wait I can just go live my life now and be kind? I don't have to stress over arranging something that makes me anxious? COOL!"

I'm that person who views an unanswered text as a "Fuck off." That whole "no response is a response" I changed to "No response means go the fuck away." Excuse the language but mentally, that is where I usually go. When that happens, I get defensive and down on myself, but lately instead of making justifications and excuses for the non-responding offender, I just attempt to change my mentality. Instead of "Fuck off," it could be "Feeling overwhelmed," or "meant to revisit the message later," to "busy."

While I preach low to no expectations, I also hope for the best and prepare for the worst. This I do to a fault. I mentally prepare for all possible outcomes to the point of exhaustion. I'm ready for all avenues of response or lack thereof. Apparently I get this from my dad, or so he claims.

My mentality is one of my greatest struggles. Confidence, strength, conviction, and sureness are not things I just have. So much of my mentality is wrapped in my trauma, I'm realizing. Because of past moments of standing up for myself and being down-played or degraded, I have less push to consistently be my own advocate. Because of trying and failing something previously, I hesitate to try again. 

Most of this stuff is human, some of it is awesomely Alison. What I realized yesterday in the mentality mattering moment was just how much I can do, with a little adjustment in my outlook on things. I am well aware I impose 90% of my stress and anxiety on myself, all on my own. It's like a gut reaction.What I'm still learning is how to mentally alleviate some of that, on my own. 

It's not a "just don't think about it," or, "don't let it bother you," type of situation but as I say to my daughter regularly, I feel it's more a "Thank you for sharing your feelings that you're sad, how can I help with that?" If I say, even to myself, "This is making me feel anxious," I can self-soothe with, "well what can we do about it."

For the contributor reaction issue, I had my list of excuses backlogged but instead I said to myself "It went out, I was busy with other things and not attentive to my email." No further explanation needed. For unresponsive friends or family members, I usually bring myself down from anxious whims by saying "Okay, you asked them to do x,y,z, they now have to respond according and if they don't, you just go on with your day. It's not an end all, be all thing."

My mentality matters a LOT when it comes to my ability to process my depression and anxiety. Not surprisingly, this aligns with my inner dialogue, my self acceptance, my letting go and my dealing with disappointment and expectations. So this reverts back to many, many other blog posts. This makes me feel happy about the cultivation of what matters and today, my mentality matters!

These aren't "easy" conclusions, acceptances and ideas to just keep in your back pocket but I continue to love my growth, my healing and all of the discoveries that come along with them. Perhaps in losing some blood today I made more room for some insight. Here we go thoughtful Thursday. Let's do this!

If You Really Listen

So I've been in this deep musical mode and I'm hours away from digging out my entire collection to dive even deeper and I had this strange, personal, and likely embarrassing memory to blog about, of course. True to form, this was all sparked by the tunes. 

When I was 18 I had this insane crush on the wrong guy. He was awesome we were just not compatible. This was an incredible pattern in my youth. From the neighbor across the street who was super dreamy and he thought I was the most annoying girl ever (full disclosure, I was) (also my best friend is laughing reading this right now) to my best guy friend when I was 16 who was completely and utterly gay and not interested in anything about me being a woman, but we just kind of "got each" other, all the way to age 18 and this kid was a fixture in my early childhood that reemerged in my college years. Of course I thought this was meant to be.

Anyway, I could blog about him because man did I make an epic mess of that one, but the moral of THIS particular post is the fact that he and I went on many, many, many road trips together. Most often to visit his family, we had concentrated car time of 2.5 hours each way. Of course I had to know and like all the bands he did and subtly force my music at him as often as possible.

He was the WORST at reading me. I could be visibly pouting and he'd be oblivious. So one time we're getting ready to go on this drive and I do it, I make...THE PLAYLIST. This mix CD had all the songs on it about how I felt, and most of them by HIS favorite bands, total bonus, and it was carefully constructed so he would completely fall in love with me by the road trip's end and then happily ever after. It was the best plan ever and couldn't possibly fail, right?

This didn't even remotely work. He skipped the songs the meant the most and unveiled my true feelings for him and even fell asleep once or twice. Of course I just sang them along to myself with all the damned feels, pouring out my soul to essentially just myself. I can now laugh hysterically about my young, naive ways and how this was a total chick move, which of course epicly failed.

Anyone who knows the complete ME, knows that I take my music very seriously. I may not be addicted to clothes shopping and having new sheets with matching duvets, but I seriously almost took out a loan and cancelled all our family vacations this year to take me and my hubby to the last Warped Tour in California to be gross and uncomfortable for 3 days of raw, live music that would officially retire us from all punk rock persuasions. 

Ironically, I still make playlists, mix CDs and communicate like this. I think I do this in an attempt to be more heard, but sometimes you have to really listen, which can be tough for people. Honestly, the reactions to the songs or albums I pass along are everything to me and I note them carefully.

My best friend and I communicate almost solely through Hanson songs and remind each other of the ones we may have forgotten in trying times. My husband and I trade songs randomly just for fun, it could be old, it could be new or it could be weird ones we would have never thought one another could find. I could send around music to the point of becoming really annoying, so I usually just engulf myself in playlists.

When my long lost friend, previously blogged about, rekindled our friendship, I sent him a care package with something like 7 burned CD mixes introducing him to all my favorite bands and songs and then wrote descriptions about what the songs meant to me and then why I sent them his way. He's a good dude so he actually read and listened. He may still have them if a girlfriend didn't find them and trash them!

Whenever I'm going through, well anything, I find my way through it with music. So when I feel friendships or relationships strained, and definitely when I'm stressed and anxious, you'll find new or revamped playlists in my Spotify for me to get me through the day. Since I'm still very much in CD mode this just sparks ideas for "mix tapes" to burn and helps me revisit my version of classics of my thirty plus years as a music lover on this planet.

I make playlists for friends, family and situations that no one will ever hear, but often I will send a song or two as a way to say things I can't find my way to communicating properly otherwise. A couple years ago a friend and I had a "song off," where we traded favorite songs and notes on why they were awesome. It's a great way to learn new tunes and share feelings, no matter how subtle or strong.

I did this even further back and exchanged Spotify lists. I made mine in like 10 minutes and it was thoughtful and real and said everything about me. The returned one from my buddy was definitely a compilation of music that was enjoyable but not many of the songs had a message, or if they did it most likely wasn't the message that was actually being sung. Since then I've sent my buddy a few songs trying to convey some pretty rough feelings I'd been going through and the response was that it wasn't a favorite kind of music and couldn't get into it. I laughed on my drive home about that, because clearly it hadn't occurred that the song send was a way of indicating I wanted help outta my "funk."

If you REALLY listen to songs exchanged and shared, they say WORLDS about me, myself, and my situation. I know this isn't the case for everyone. For some people, music is just music. For me, music is where I go when I can't write or formulate the words and I feel it needs to be taken to the next level. 

I've actually always dreamt of being a music video producer or the person that selects songs for soundtracks and scenes in shows and movies. I think that music can change any dynamic quickly. Something sad could be changed into a more calm situation with the right song. I firmly believe that music is the soundtrack of my life.

If you really listen to what I choose to put on, or a song I send you, the messages can be multifaceted, even complicated depending on my mood. I take lyrics very seriously and Google them to no end to make sure I know what they are saying. Music can change meaning over the years, and in incredible ways. When I was 17 and listening to the Beatles, they were jaunty, catchy tunes. Then I saw "Across the Universe" and really started listening to their collection and they're crazy deep and insightful. 

The songs that I thought meant something different in my youth, have aged with me and now hit me in new ways. I love how timeless music is, no matter what medium you're listening to. I remember loving the Backstreet Boys because their songs were catchy and they were all over MTV and then when my parents got divorced my dad was explaining to me that most of those songs were about heartbreak and break ups and failed relationships. I had to really listen because the music videos just had dance moves to distract you from it being kind of depressing subject matter. 

I even always loved depressing music though, even when I was particularly happy. I love how music could just kick you right in the feels and make you succumb to all the emotions you may have been avoiding. I've cried at plenty of concerts and not in a fan girl way, but just because watching it all happen live can be intense and spiritual.

I'm also kind of a harsh critic. Now I'm not one to say what is better or best or that certain music "sucks," but for me it is all about substance. I knew I was getting old when I heard Rihanna's song "Work" and thought, "Well this is just noise. What is she even saying?"

I know why songs get popular and hit Billboard, but I also know that some artists are really saying things and conveying things to their fans, while others are just in it for the showmanship. For me it is all about THE MESSAGE. I try to really listen, because if you really listen, a whole new musical world can open up before you.

If I ever send you a song, you should know that I have something to convey with it. I'm your go to person for when you're having a bad day, I'll find the song to illustrate what you're going through. I believe that music is a huge part of healing. Music makes me a better person and I actually get depressed if I don't listen to it enough. 

We have songs for when we are happy, sad, mad, in love, in a break-up, confused, and so on and so forth. Some songs are just silly and catchy and some will stop you in your tracks and change the face of your day, or even your life:

Natalie Portman was right, by the way, that one song did actually change my life. Not only is Garden State in my top 5 all time soundtracks, but because of this movie and this scene, I'm a hardcore Shins fan. One day I hope to get my favorite quote from that song, "New Slang," tattooed on me someday.

  

So here I am typing and I'm listening to this playlist I made for today as I'm sifting through mental closure of unresponsiveness and moving on from old versions of myself while growing into new places and phases. Each song is on there saying something specific. Some lyrics are meant to be heard and understood verbatim, some are more metaphoric, and some of just the ideas and melodies of general feels and emotions racing through me.

Sometimes I make playlists and think about if you really listened to them on a chilly evening by a fire pit and curled up to talk about why they are the best, how transforming it could be, knowing full well those nights are super rare. Call me a hippie but all of my best Oregon associations with smoking weed were mostly around listening to albums and hippie dancing to them. 

I truly believe, wholeheartedly that there is a soundtrack to accompany everything in life. It could be a road trip, a weekend getaway, a rough conversation, a family event, a life change, or just a bike ride. There are songs that take you away within every situation to where you should be. 

So, if you REALLY listen to music, and if you REALLY listen when someone shares a song or album with you, you can learn an immense amount about anything from what they are personally going through, to what their taste in music is, to what they want to say to you but maybe lack the best way to do it. This isn't to say that if you get sent a love song that the sender is actually in love with you but it's a great conversation starter, regardless.

It's my advice that you REALLY listen, and if you do, drink it in, pay attention and get into that groove!