Sound Track for Change

Last night a stayed up late perusing music from older tapes that I have.

I don't even use my CDs much, considering them back-ups for the digital music I have from them, either ripped or included in the purchase. So the tapes are really obsolete.

But they represent a time in life when my marriage was coming apart as my wife grew distant--figuratively and literally (in fairness, I suspect it was doomed from the start but I just didn't know it)--and I was coming to terms with that.

So my long commutes were a time to listen to my own music, newly purchased. I had bought music in high school and college (and you've seen what I did with that), but in young adulthood didn't buy music. Money was needed elsewhere.

But as the life I knew was ending, my own music helped process the change to a new life.

Third Eye Blind, Liz Phair, The Smashing Pumpkins, K's Choice, Alanis Morissette, Hole, Cowboy Junkies. And more.

I kept them in my car and popped them in the tape player for the long drives each day. And by listening to my own  music several hours per day, I began the process of accepting and creating a new life.

And I like my new phase of life. I wouldn't change a single choice out of fear that even one different thing would change the course of my life to where it is now with two great children and all the rest.

I may yet marry again. Marriage didn't sour me on that! But I just haven't met the right woman yet (or haven't met the right woman who was capable of returning the favor, I suppose--I have issues, I know). I do try.

But those tapes have for the most part sat unexamined for a long time. I kept thinking I should weed out some that I have CD and digital versions for, but never have.

But last night I took a short trip down memory lane. It was a painful but necessary route.