Still Listening

The year’s almost gone. I’ve been through whatever I’ve been through—new people, lost people, plans that worked and plans that didn’t. Everyone I know has some version of the same story. But the one thing that didn’t change, the one thread through all of it, was music. I couldn’t imagine this year without it.

I spent most nights that mattered lying awake with my iPod, mind spinning while the thing played whatever would fit the mood. Some nights it was overwrought J-pop ballads that let me feel like my emotional wreckage at least had production value. Other nights it was punk—the kind that screams because screaming is the only language left. Sometimes both, flipping between them every few songs because sadness needs to become anger and then sadness again. The shuffle kept going and I kept listening.

There’s a list somewhere of ten songs from 2006 that meant something. Songs I wore out, songs that got played in that specific hour of the morning when sleep won’t come and thinking is all you’ve got. Not the best songs ever made. Just the ones that were there.

I’ll probably forget most of what happened this year. But I remember the playlists. I remember lying there in the dark, and the music playing, and somehow that being enough.