I woke abruptly shortly before my silent alarm lit the room. I lay still and quiet, wondering what woke me, and still sensing the lingering remnants of my dreams. There was, rather oddly, an old Juice Newton song stuck in my head – not music I listen to, nor have I heard it recently. Peculiar, especially knowing I have not heard it recently (on background music in the grocery store or something of that sort). 1981 – I was finishing high school and preparing to head to basic training that year. It was a year of a lot of change. I was 17.

By the time I reached the office, the music in my head had shifted. 1975 – 10cc. Weird way to time travel, eh? I’d have been… 11? 12? Not long after my (most significant) TBI. It was a strange time, and I still lived at home, with my family of origin. I guess I could just say “with my family” – but that means different things to different people these days, and I’m specifically referencing my mother, father, and my two sisters, in this case. As I settled in to work, the music in my head moved on with the years… Alice Cooper… Van Halen… AC/DC… I listen to songs from other times, still loving them, still moved by them, and just a little astonished by how much my tastes have changed over the years, with moods, with moments, with circumstances, and with relationships. I shake off a moment of soft sorrow, and choose a playlist from a more recent time, more upbeat, associated with happier memories and easier times. “A better groove“. Music is almost a kind of magic, I sometimes think – a way of casting a spell over ourselves, and carrying our heart back to another time, a different place.

I grin to myself and think of my beloved Traveling Partner and his exceptional gift for creating an emotional moment using music. He has inspired me so often, and moved me to laughter, to tears, to passion, so many times. I remember that I don’t have to sit with my pain just because a song plays… I can change the music.

It doesn’t do to dwell on sorrow and pain, and it’s very much a choice I can make – to let that go, to control the mood in the moment, to grab the wheel and drive. It’s my journey, after all.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. There’s a horizon in the distance, and a journey to make between here and there. It’s time to begin again.