Ever try and drown out your own thoughts in music? As if turning up the volume a few notches will erase the pessimistic notions taking up permanent residence in your mind. Hoping that if you reach max volume, the vibrato will somehow flip the switch, turning your brain on silent…at least for a little while. You shut your eyes hoping that staring at the back of your eyelids means that you can no longer see your problems and they can’t see you. As if the darkness can hide everything that’s been running through your mind like a marathon that never ends and the waves crashing through your ears can suppress the voices in your head yelling at you to BE BETTER. BE SMARTER. BE STRONGER. When the second, third, fiftieth consecutive bad day has you questioning whether feeling something…even if it’s pain, is better than feeling nothing at all?

But it can’t. At some point the headphones have to come off. Eventually you have open up your eyes because it won’t fix your aching heart, or the disgust you feel when you look in a mirror, or the tears you silently spill over the little things that cause you stress. Music is only a temporary fix to a problem that can only be solved from within. And until you finally realize you’re bigger than your problems, than the exam you failed, or the boy who left you with a heart shattered like a broken mirror when all you tried to do was love him. Until you realize that, you’ll be cranking the volume until you blow your speakers.

Photo by Hugo Barbosa on Unsplash