It's Saturday and I'm lying sick in bed. Yet for three minutes and forty-seven seconds this morning, I felt healthier than I have in months.
It has become abundantly clear to me recently that taking the time for yourself is the hardest thing to prioritize. Case in point - being sick today is truly my own doing. No, I wasn't up late raging. I just happen to be a part of that sick group of individuals who, for whatever reason, cannot seem to turn off work. Perhaps it is because I'm a millennial and for us, the lines between work and life have been so blurred there is no more balance. Perhaps it's because society has changed in such a way that a traditional 9-to-5 is a thing of the past. Perhaps it is because I live in New York, where the city literally never sleeps. Perhaps it is because of my chosen industry. Or perhaps it is because I'm the type of person who is just innately susceptible to such things. Whatever the underlying cause, suffice to say that after a week of work-related travel and a month of not sleeping nearly enough, I've overdone it and have landed myself in bed on one of my few days off.
But to be candid, these flu-like symptoms are far less concerning to me than a disease that's been creeping up slowly over the last several weeks. It first came to light on the phone with a friend, when I realized I'd been droning on for 30 minutes about my job, which couldn't be less interesting to an outsider. It was worse, though, when standing in the middle of a room with 60 people, I shut down small talk with my inability to think of anything beyond work to discuss. As I put off catching up with loved ones for a few more hours working and dreams and nightmares alike became tied to happenings in and around the office, I began to wonder - who am I anymore? If you took away my job, what would you be left with?
And so, having woken up at 7 AM (because who needs sleep?) feeling like crud and dragging myself out of bed in the search for sustenance in the form of groceries, the last place I was expecting find a lost piece of my soul was on 2nd Avenue between two plastic headphones in the stylings of an artist I'd never heard before.
Science and data alike have shown that, broadly speaking, your musical taste is formed during your teenaged years and solidifies in your early twenties, at which you stop looking for new sounds with the same gusto as you once did. There are a variety of reasons for this, from hearing loss to personal identity to hormones to lifestyle, but in the end, it just means that you start relying more on throwbacks than new tunes to keep you company during the moments when you crave a song.
I don't know about you, though, but my old music catalogue gets... well, old. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place for the tracks you deem classics - yes, I even wrote about it here before - but in the end, you crave something more. Not necessarily different, but... new.
This internal struggle is the reason we eagerly await a new release from our favorite artists and are often crushed when he / she / they veer in a differently musical direction. It's also the reason every music service on the planet is investing in everything from algorithms and AI to tastemakers and "experts" to try and deliver you musical recommendations you'll love - and if one ever truly cracks the code (if there is one to crack), nothing will ever be able to compete.
Which brings me back to my early morning trek across Manhattan. I'd hit a few buttons and tuned into a playlist with no real expectations, and suddenly found myself brought back to a simpler time. While it was a new song I was listening to - out only days prior - it harkened back to artists I'd loved in my early teenaged years. Let's face it, nothing in music is ever truly "new" - whether its a literal piece of musical history with a song covered or sampled, light homage to periods of music past, or just the fact that there are only so many cords and notes and ways to errand them in ways are generally pleasing to the ear, most sound is reiteration of sounds past.
But in this moment, listening to this song, it was like I was transported to that crazy, intensely emotional time in youth when you rarely have the words to say how you feel but somehow you're able to find a song that does it for you. It's not the type of track I would normally chose to listen to these days, but it pulled up such a nostalgia from years past that it was as though in this moment, my world was what it was more than a decade ago, and my musical tastes went with it.
And then I remembered: this is who I am. I'm this person who feels things deeply (sometimes too much), who is a romantic, who believes in fate and love and the joy life can bring, who can get lost in a moment - or a song. I hadn't vanished entirely into my work, I just needed to be reminded of the person underneath, of the soft squishy interior under the hard exterior we all put on to tackle the day.
Our musical tastes might not budge much from the early days of our lives, but that doesn't mean there aren't new sounds to be found. And while the hunt might sometimes feel arduous, it's worth it to find an old piece of yourself in a new piece of music. It's not going to change the facts of life. But maybe, just maybe, it might be the push you need to rediscover what you love, whether that's a hobby or an interest or the inspiration to pick up a pen and write about the joys of music again.