Post #2 Why Sit in Silence?

     Because I live in Caro, work in Frankenmuth, and attend school in between Bay City and Saginaw, I spend a lot of my time driving. I don't mind driving at all, in fact I like it. I view my commutes from home to work and to school as my "me time." This "me time" is very important to me because for about two hours a day, I am by myself and able to listen to whatever music I'd like. A lot of the time, the music that I listen to on my way to school or work sets the tone not only for the beginning of my day, but also for the rest of my day. I usually get an ear worm from the music I listen to earlier in the day and carry it around with me for quite a while. SIDE NOTE: If you were unaware of what an ear worm is, it is a song that is stuck in your head. We've all had those before. If the song that is stuck in my head has a good groove to it and is somewhat of a "feel-good" song, I will generally be more positive throughout the day. Therefore, if that song is one that is more on the depressing side, there is a good chance that my day may seem a bit more overcast than usual.

     Music does not only impact my day, but on a larger scale, it impacts my life by way of my memories and feelings. Like everyone else in the world, I can listen to a certain song and instantly be thrown into a flashback of a time where that song was playing, or when that song was popular or when it had just come out. For example, let's go back about seven years to middle school. More specifically, the first middle school dance that I had ever attended. It was a Friday in October and I was in sixth grade. Many kids surrounded the DJ's loud speakers and flashing lights, jumping, because let's face it, we didn't really know how to dance. The DJ had announced that it was "time to slow things down a bit" and that this would be the last slow song of the dance. I had watched the boy that I liked at the time slow dance with several girls throughout the evening and wanted very much to slow dance with him. The song "21 Guns" by Green Day came on as I got up to approach him to ask if he would dance with me. I was only a few steps away when this girl, you know the one who had a new boyfriend every two weeks or so, put her arms around his neck. At that moment I wanted to put my arms around her neck too, and not in the same way. I sat there on the bleachers for the remainder of the dance. Now, every time I hear that song, I instantly think of that dance and the depression I felt at the time. (Just for the record, I really dodged a bullet there with that kid and can now laugh about the whole experience)

     As you may have learned from my last blog post, and as you will continue to realize in my future blog posts, music has a great impact on my life and is very important to me. If I am not listening to music for even a minute while I'm driving, I feel like I am wasting my time by sitting in silence and not having a single creative or complex thought in my head. Because that is one of many things that music does to a person, it can be a base for your thoughts, ideas, and emotions. There are so many memories and connections to be made while listening to music, so why waste a single minute in silence?