The Music in My Life

            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.