I’m sipping my coffee in the quiet of the office before dawn on a Monday morning, listening to a favorite jazz singer crooning softly in my ears. I find myself reflecting on the last time I listened to this particular woman’s voice, before “rediscovering her” recently, searching for a particular song to share with a friend going through some things. I lived a very different life at that time. Most of the music I listened to then was jazz. That realization got me thinking about the many different “versions of me” I have lived over a lifetime, through the lens of the music I listened to.

Using music to differentiate from one version of myself to another, I can see myself change over time, through career changes, addresses, partnerships, personal philosophy and points of view, economic circumstances, the books I read, the language I used, the way I painted, and even preferences in how I dressed, and who I hung out with. Change is. I’ve grown over a lifetime of choices, opportunities, and circumstances. Some of my changes have been inflicted upon me, some were choices. In some sense, I have been many women.

That woman who listened mostly to jazz lived with domestic violence, which she carefully hid from the view of colleagues. She had few friends. She was physically beautiful – as beautiful as she would ever be, but her mind was a mess. Her values and philosophy in life reflected the strained jigsaw puzzle of thinking errors and mental gymnastics needed to rationalize her experience. She lived a strange sleepless life, traumatized and anxious, and always vigilant. Music – particularly jazz – was always “a safe topic” at home. An acceptable shared pleasure. Her home was compulsively meticulously neat, always. It had to be. She was young – in her 20s – and a soldier on active duty. Respected at work, mistreated and tormented at home, she kept people at a distance, except those occasions when she “let it all go” and hit the club looking for a moment of affection in a stranger’s embrace, when circumstances permitted. It was a life of confusion, and as her mental health eroded, her substantial collection of jazz CDs increased. I listen to that music now with mixed emotions, when I listen to it at all. I find beauty in the music, and distress in the memories. I am a lifetime away from that young woman, and a very different person. I make different choices. I think different thoughts. I believe different things and understand the world differently.

I chose change many times before I ever put myself on this path. Searching for something different, and finding differences, but not wellness, contentment, or joy. For a long time I blindly chased “happiness”, finding mostly misery.

I’d found myself mired in futility long before I met my Traveling Partner. His friendship pulled me back from the brink of despair more than once, before we were ever lovers. His love was literally “life changing” – because it changed my thinking, and my choices. I’ve come so far! I smile to myself, and change the music. I’ve “changed the music” many times in this one mortal lifetime (it’s a metaphor). I’m grateful to have had that opportunity. I smile and listen to wise words in a favorite song. We can choose change. Sometimes change is forced upon us. Change is. I’m grateful for this enduring love (and partnership) along the journey.

…The journey is the destination. There is no map. If you stray from your path, begin again.