Mental Mix Tape

This morning while getting ready for work I had 4 songs stuck in my head, playing on a loop in a mental playlist. I have only recently listened to 2 of the 4 songs. Bob Marley's No Woman Don't Cry, Maroon 5's Love Somebody, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man, and Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself. I sense a theme with my playlist this morning and I even moreso now believe that the strength of our subconscious is beyond our comprehension. Sometimes I think we know ourselves more deeply than we even realize and it is evident in situations like this where my own mind surprised me and put together my fragmented thoughts and scattered emotions into a mental mix tape. 

Long ago I used to pretend life was a movie, taking each day or even each situation as one movie scene, frame by frame. There were the regular cast members - mom, dad, T, the school crush, my lunatic Algebra teacher Mrs. Daranyi who called me an albino in front of the entire class...and then there were guest appearances - the cute boy at the mall, the homeless man I befriended at Starbucks who was convinced he could tell you your life story based on number sequences. There was the old woman I was paired up with as a volunteer at the Jewish Home for the Aging who died not too long after getting to know her; my art teacher Dottie; acquaintances who came and went in frequent rotation. 

I think this was a coping mechanism for me; it made it easier to fantasize about being a main character in the movie of my life rather than facing the reality that it was really happening and it was mine. I was always told by my family and teachers that I have a very vivid imagination. But without help molding the proper way to use this "gift," things can get easily distorted and warp my perception of reality. And when I came to the realization that this so called movie was my true, real life, it was hard to adjust. It was hard to accept that I had to wake up and really feel.

 

Feelings are a constant topic for me. Having them, facing them, their origins, what to do with them and where to catalogue them in my mind are all concerns that I face on a regular basis. The realization that I am a typical female was the first issue I had to come to terms with. I am typical. I just keep repeating this. Why is this a shock to me? No one is really unique. Our relationships with one another are what is unique. How we relate and communicate and the foundation of our friendships is the uniqueness to who we are. But at the end of the day we are all female or male, breathing, blood pumping human beings who all have feelings, worries, stresses and cares.

 

My mental mix tape is my subconscious reminding me that there are feelings that I must face. Billy Idol’s lyrics “with the record selection, and the mirror's reflection, I'm dancing with myself…” or Bob Marley saying “Good friends we have had, oh, good friends we've lost, along the way. In this great future you can't forget your past…” and even Maroon 5’s “…you're such a hard act for me to follow. Love me today, don't leave me tomorrow…” encompass the many feelings that I am facing. Fear of being alone; friends who may be moving away in the near future and the friends I’ve already lost in the past; fear of loving and losing… Man I love the power of music.

 

Or…perhaps I’m completely over thinking this whole thing and in truth I heard the other songs playing at some point this week in a restaurant or on a commercial and by chance my mind put it all together at random with no deeper meaning. I’d like to believe it is the first reason and that there is a deeper reasoning behind the way my mind works…and that maybe I am actually unique!