I was standing in the kitchen, looking out the window, when it occurred to me. I can’t remember the last time I listened to music. I can’t recall the last time I wanted to listen to music. Had it been months? Years? Since my heart needed the lilting notes of sound? I couldn’t remember. 

I walked into the bedroom and searched for my headphones, a tangled mess of disregard. One can find meaning in anything, if they look long or hard enough. I put them in my ears and started back to the kitchen. Thinking back now, this moment was immensely substantive. It stands out to this day. But if you asked me what I cooked, or wore, or even the minutes that led up to this realization, I couldn’t tell you any of those details. I just know that music found its way back to my world after being silenced for longer than I could know. 

Struggle doesn’t always look like messy social media posts, or chaos, or rage. Sometimes it is existing in silence. Sometimes it is waking up each day with no desire for sounds that bring energy or smiles, or even feeling. I had been fighting on so many fronts for so long that I gave up something that others may think to be small. I mean, even to me, I am not musically gifted – other than lyrically so at times, but it’s not as though music is tied to my being. Still, music is though, isn’t it? It was there the summer I found love. The night my heart was broken. Music was in my arms when I first held my daughter. Music floods me with connection, rememory, and lets me slip out of the tumult of torrential to-dos. 

So standing in that silent kitchen, realizing what had really been lost, meant something. More than something, it was deep, poignant, life-altering. But if you had been watching me through that window, you wouldn’t have seen my life shift. You couldn’t have known the rush of realization that flooded over every part of me. You couldn’t have felt the sweeping sadness, but also the sighing release. You would have seen me standing quietly, walk out of the room, grab my earbuds, and go back to cooking. No one around me any wiser, or more in tune with who I was choosing to be moving forward. 

Something clicked inside of me that day, and I realized I had been stifled. Maybe suffocating is too graphic and intense a way of thinking about it, but there was a part of me that couldn’t breathe. This passionate, free, musically-driven part. This part that somehow knew things would be okay, even though nothing felt okay for a very long while. I had no idea in that moment how much harder the next few years would be, but because I found my way back to music, somehow, I knew I could manage my way through. 

If you’re missing melody in your life, I hope you can find it again soon. Our earthly orchestra wouldn’t sound the same without you.