Time to
blog again. I'm gonna find a way to fit
blogging (even sort of regularly) into my already cramped schedule. I'll figure
it out. I'm writing this at 6:30am when
only one of my little guys are awake and although he keeps trying to break and
ruin dvds and I may lose my train of though 10 times before I finish...at least
I'm writing!
So what
inspired this post happened yesterday, for the first time in about 8-9 years I
pulled out some of my favorite music from high school. As I sat their uploading the music to my
computer I thought to myself, "why haven't I pulled this music out in 9
years? Not even once?" And so I kind of paused and pondered for a
few moments...and then I came up with some reasons.
One big
part is some of my most favorite music was from my Osmond records I got for
Christmas one year when I was about fifteen.
I started to be really into the Osmonds before than and loved their
music (which says a lot because I hate 70s music in general hah!) and so my
parents got my scores of records and my mom already had a few and I bought a
few more off ebay (which was newish and sooooo cool back then haha!) Anyhow, I
listened and sang and imagined in my room pretty much all day when I wasn't at
school and I just loved all those songs so much. But then a few months before I graduated from
high school my family left Washington state
and moved to Colorado
and I stayed behind at another family's house to finish I no longer had my
cherished records. And then once I
finally joined them...everything was in transition while they lived in a small
townhouse and looked for a house and I prepped for college there wasn't time to
find and unload my record player.
So then I
hopped off to college and didn't have my music for like 9 months. Once I got back to my parents new house for
the summer, I pulled it out (I think) and listened to it again. And then my dad bought my mom this cool
record digitalizing machine and we digitized all the records so I had them on
CDs! So I think I probably brought those
back to college with me, but then I had some really mean, cruel roommates and
started dating "Charming" so I didn't really spend a lot of time at my apartment and
so I couldn't listen to my music again.
Then we got
married and were pretty much transient every few months with college and summer
jobs until April 2009 when we moved to Denver .
Well, then my record play was in storage, I was prego and tired and never put
my CDs on the computer knowing it was old and would probably die soon anyway,
which it did.
By this
point I had pretty much forgotten the music I loved back in high school. I had a baby and life just got busy. Plus I was always a little distrustful of the
computers and the idea of doing all that work only to lose it when the computer
crashed kind of seemed like a lot of effort.
Now we use external harddrives and move our stuff off so that's not the
hugest deal anymore (thank heavens for a computer savvy husband!)
Another
reason for the lack of music I think is because I really don't have time these
days to just sit and listen and sing and even when I do I'm so exhausted and it
sounds like a lot of work. But I've learned something which I will touch on in
a bit that has to do with this.
The last,
and possibly (however subconscious), biggest reason is that music really moves
me. It really touches me and I think
sometimes I invest much too much emotion into the music and attach a lot of
feelings to it. So I haven't pulled it
out in that long partly because I was afraid it would make me melancholy and
make me miss my teenage years and family etc. And it's probably a bit
true. But it helps now that I live only
a mile away from my parents. So that is a big help.
But I
starting thinking about that music the other day and told myself that I really
needed to pull it out and start listening to it again. And I'm so glad I did. And for about 1-2
hours I uploaded, sang, and just let the music fill me and move me and while I
was signing a favorite song I thought to myself, "this is soooo ME! Why do I not take even 15 minutes to listen
to three songs and just get fully into my musical love for even just 15
minutes??" It's such a huge part of
me I always knew was missing but was too tired to focus on.
I think my
whole round-about point here is that...I've felt lost for a while and don't
feel like myself sometimes. I think
mostly because I'm a mom and tired and worn out all the time. but I think it's also because life and time
made me leave big pieces of myself behind.
So at least I've discovered how amazing I feel listening to much loved
music and just totally singing and immersing myself in music even for a short
little period every day. Apparently it's more important than I ever
realized. I wish I wasn't too tired to
sing all day like I used to...maybe that can be my next goal, but for now, I'm
so glad that this big piece of me is back!
So if you
are a tired, worn-out, exhausted mom and feel like you've lost touch with
yourself...think about when you felt the most you of your life and stand back and
see what you are missing and make a little time every day to be that person
again. I think it's important...and we
mom's can get so selfless and put so much into our kiddos that I think we
forget that we need a little TLC sometimes too!
So that's my little challenge to you!
Go find a missing piece of yourself--however tiny--and remember. Or if you still feel like yourself just go
immerse yourself in something you haven't had time to do for a long time...even
if you're occasionally interrupted by the kiddos. Find a way.
It's worth it.
