What objects tell the story of your life?

Between my ears 

    Many things could tell the story of my life, but nothing speaks louder than the ones I place on my head every day. On its own, it’s just a pair of headphones. To me, it represents my way of energy, emotion, and sense of life. Music has been important to me for as long as I can remember, shaping each season of my life and capturing emotions I never knew how to express.  I always take a pair of headphones, earbuds, or anything that provides melody between my ears. It understands what I’m feeling even when I don’t. You can ask my peers, and they would agree that they always see me with headphones. If I don’t have them, just know that I am having the worst day ever. That’s just how special they are to my character. 

My parents gave me my first pair of headphones; they were definitely cheap and flimsy. Although they barely worked half the time,  they were the light of my world. I would put them on, and they would always give me joy as I put on my headphones listening to my favorite song on repeat. It made me feel like nothing else around me mattered. Those headphones enabled me to open all of the different genres and diverse cultures that interest me. More than anything, music became my escape, a place that I could disappear into when the world just felt too loud. 

For me, after any inconvenience, I use music as a way to regulate my emotions. I am an anxious person at times, for major events that happen; if I get into an altercation with another person; if im in trouble; whenever my anxiety takes control, my thoughts start to get loud. I’m not able to think properly. Often, there is a feeling that always makes my skin crawl, as if there was a spider creeping on my back onto my neck. Very, very unsettling. But the moment when I place my headphones on, it changes everything. I start thinking more clearly, and I can focus better. 

     This does not only apply to anxiety. I use my music as an escape from anything–whether that's disappointment, frustration, boredom, or awkward conversations–there hasn’t been a moment when my headphones didn’t help me out.  There was a moment when I asked my parents if I could sleep over at my cousin’s house, but for some reason that I can’t recall, they said no. I was in fumes because all my cool cousins who made me laugh all the time were going to be there, while they were having fun, I was rotting in my room. As a typical kid, I used to have those thoughts: “What if I just ran away?” or “I hate them so much”. Probably shouldn’t have been thinking that way, but it felt like it was the end of the world! Nevertheless, though, I used music as a way for me to calm down and accept my fate.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Coming of Age of Mother's Younger Brother?

Image
    As we took a deep dive into Ragtime, Mother's Younger Brother emerges as one of the most dynamic yet troubled characters in the story. Being faced with the struggles of identity and change. Initially, he is a young man living at his sister's house. drifting through life without direction or purpose. He has an obsession with Evelyn Nesbit, letting all his decisions be directed towards her. "Mother's Younger Brother was in love with Evelyn Nesbit. He has closely followed the scandal surrounding her name and had begun to reason that the death of her lover, Stanford White, and the imprisonment of her husband, Harry K. Thaw," (Chapter 8). Revealing to us his immaturity and inability to distinguish a real human connection from shallow desire. One of the reasons he falls downhill is after his situation with Evelyn Nessbit fails. Endowing him with thoughts of suicide after placing his whole life purpose in obsessing over her. "The young man was in mourning,"...
Read more

Our Jes Grew of Today

Image
     Jes Grew represents a powerful cultural force that spreads like an uncontrollable epidemic, embodying freedom, creativity, and African diasporic expression. In Mumbo Jumbo, it is expressed as a “plague” that infects people with dance, rhythm, and joy, standing in direct opposition to rigid Western structures that try to suppress individuality and Black culture. Obviously, now we know that Jes Grew is not a literal disease, but a metaphor for cultural awakening—a rebellion against conformity and the erasure of African identity. Ishmael Reed celebrates how culture, especially music and art, cannot be contained or silenced by systems of control. During the novel, the Atonist Order symbolizes the forces that seek to suppress Jes Grew: institutions of power, colonialism, and cultural dominance. Fearing that the spread of cultural challenges hierarchy and celebrates expressions outside the normal “American” norms. In a sense, Jes Grew becomes more of a fight for authentici...
Read more

Liking What I Learned to Hide

Have you ever been embarrassed by the things you used to like? Anime was one of my favorite things to watch growing up, and it remains so now. As a young child, I was very fond of cartoons and animation. Loving the different art styles, fight scenes, and dynamic storytelling. It all melded together well, and anime became the bread-and-butter of that masterpiece. Reflecting, I remember always being excited to pull up my favorite illegal websites to watch shows like Naruto and Dragon Ball Z because I didn’t appreciate all the ads back then. Don’t judge me, we've all been there. Anime was really enjoyable to me, but it wasn’t as enjoyable to everyone else.  Back then, anime wasn’t a mainstream thing to watch before the COVID-19 lockdown era. It was seen as “weird” or “childish.” People weren’t allowed to express what they watched, whether it was talking about it, dressing like the characters, or even acting like different characters. A vast majority of people who watched anime wer...
Read more