a cappella.

Last Friday I decided to give up music for a week.

I spend, on average, five hours a day in my car. Usually these hours turn into intense workouts for my vocal chords. Sometimes they lead me far away, sometimes deep inside myself, sometimes I become someone else. Sometimes I *holding breath* realize things. Sometimes my eyes get stuck on some distant point beyond the windshield, and I am nowhere. But whatever my state happens to be, it is indubitably affected by the music that surrounds me. I am always sensing the music. Until now I had no idea just how much.

I've gone five days without music now, and I miss it terribly. I've been forced to reckon with some things in my heart that probably wouldn't have come out had I not been sitting alone in SILENCE for 25 hours in my car. When I come home and walk in my room I am faced with thoughts and memories I've been able to hide from when the music is playing. When I write there is no tune to get me "flowing" and I'm finding out what's really "in there"...

I catch myself humming and singing songs all the time now. It's been interesting because they're songs I don't typically listen to and/or haven't heard in a really long time.. they're songs that mean something to me for right now as opposed to the songs that sound good to me right now.

Music is its own sense. For me, anyway. It's an escape, an inspiration; music gets me excited, calms me down. There's nothing bad about any of those things. But I'm realizing right now that maybe I'm missing out on some parts of me that are really quite important simply because I'm always immersing myself in music.. there's always something else to keep me interested, to keep me entertained, to keep my mind leaping from thought to thought as the tracks change from song to song. Certain songs carry certain "spirits" with them, which I so easily plug into and out of as quickly as the songs start and stop. This week it's been me.. and my own spirit.. duking it out. I've laughed. I've cried [a lot]. I've been uncomfortable, at times.

My EXITS have significantly decreased.
Uncomfortable, and good.

(Friday at 7pm I will be listening to music. Probably all night. For now, I'm exhausting myself.. and realizing a lot.)