Listening to music is my go-to habit when I feel lost, grateful, happy, sad, or overwhelmed. I have a series of playlists, each to suit the current emotion I'm feeling.
April 4th, 2023. I sat up on my bed thinking of what to eat, my emotions felt numb, I wasn't happy or sad, I was just blank. While waiting for the thought of food to come, I decided to listen to one of the playlists I had created, nothing else gets me like the way it does.
I stretched my hands to pick up my phone and turn on the speaker at the corner of my bed. I quickly connected to it and it started playing immediately. The song that played was not from the playlist I intended, it was the song that was on the last time I connected to the speaker.
I waited for about ten seconds and decided I wanted to listen to something different, the current song playing changed my mind. Soon, Jessie J's "Who you are" filled the walls of my room, a song I downloaded because I saw it in the movie, "Step Up" and liked it.
As I sat up, my mind wandered into a completely different place, far from the thought of food. I started to remember how my life was in the past and the friends I lost. I realized God was good to me, I had some of the things I had prayed for four years ago. Surely I wasn't where I wanted to be but I wasn't where I used to be either.
I turned up the volume of the speaker, enough to fill my head with more images of the past as I reflected on it but not disturb my neighbors. It was a walk through the past. I remember how I got all the love and care I needed from my friends and family when I was in the hospital, I could not wish for better friends.
They did the job of the nurses, carrying me to the lab when I needed an X-ray, visiting me every day even if it meant spending extra on transportation, and bringing food when I had no appetite, they were basically there for my every need.
I might not have made good decisions all the time in the past but I sure did pick the right friends. The lyrics of the song started to sink in. I sat there while my music player suggested more songs like that and my mind continued to wander.
I forgot how loud the music was playing at this point. My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on my door. One of my neighbors asked me to reduce the volume of the speaker politely, she needed to revise her notes for an exam she had later that day. I agreed and went to sit back the listen to music but the feeling was different this time.
I wasn't numb anymore. I decided it was time to start my day. I got up, went straight to the bathroom to take a bath and find what to eat later while I try to figure out what my fiction story for the Inkwell latest prompt would be about.