L-O-V-E....four letters. Four letters that become a word. A four letter word that can turn your life upside down. A feeling that hits your soul. For some, it becomes a lifetime journey. A deep longing. A quest for something that can make a person feel whole. A passion so deep, it bleeds through your veins.
I fell in love with music. And it came unexpectedly. It wasn't anything I was used to, and most definitely not what I was looking for. It was out of the ordinary for me, but maybe at the point I was at in my life, it was something that I needed.
It was a passionate affair. A love so deep it made my body ache. I had laughed harder than I can remember. I had felt my inside smile. Whether I had invited it or not, it had touched my soul, and for the first time in ages I felt alive again. I had become so cynical, I wasn't sure that love really existed. Or maybe I just wasn't sure that it existed for me. Music came into my life, and I loved. I loved with everything I had in me.
Music didn't just make me laugh, it made me cry. I cried. I cried long and hard. I had realized that in all that I had come to love, music couldn't love me the same way in return. It had become venom and I had started to resent it. There is selfishness with music that is so deeply rooted. It is covered in all its glitz and glamour. It's hidden in all its lyrics of love. Sometimes music can break your heart. And it had definitely broken mine. It wasn't long before I realized that music had deceived me. It gobbled me up, and spit me out. I was left empty, blank, and confused. I had become such a part of music, but had music truly become a part of me? How can something that you love so much, and feel so much love from, become something that can hurt just as deeply? I had walked away and realized that for the first time, I really let it all go. I really let it in. And when I looked around, I realized it had left me. And maybe that's what it was supposed to do.
My love affair with music came and went. I sang lyrics of love, and lyrics of pain. There were lyrics of betrayal and disappointment, and equally lyrics of regret and forgiveness. Songs of love and passion. The feeling of forever and the loss of time. Music had hurt me once before, but I had never stopped loving it. I never stopped listening to it, and enjoying it all around me. I had become lost in all that it was to me. But did music need me as much as I needed it? The thing that I learned about my love for music, is that even as I sit here, bitter, hurt, and angry....it was worth it. Maybe music cannot love me the way I need it to, or the way I want. Maybe music doesn't long for me the way I do it...but it loves me nonetheless. In it's imperfect ways, it loves me. And in some way, it needs me too.
No one anticipates heartache when they fall in love. But heartache is a risk you take. The difference is embarking on a love affair that is not just worth the risk, but actually worth the heartache. Because when you are alone, and the tears finally slow down...can that love still fill the cavity of your soul? Is it possible that love really does conquer all? Maybe not in the storybook version we would all like, but maybe in its own way it does. The variables of love change with the seasons. Love affairs come and go, some memories begin to fade, and the heart eventually heals. The only constant, is that no matter how much heartbreak music and its love leaves, there are still only 24 hours in a day. No matter how much I miss music, how much I sadly still long for it, I know that this day will eventually end. And against all resistance, tomorrow will begin.
Loving something, truly loving something, requires you to step out of a comfort zone. To give in to fear. To let go of every inhibition and just be. There are no rules for love. No manual containing steps to avoid heartache. To love something, you have to tear away all its layers. All its glitz and glamour. Erase all of the footnotes. Truly love the paper that all the imperfect lyrics are written on.
I love music, and for some brief period in my journey, I know that music loved me too.Photo by Nadine Miranda
