You Can't Stop the Beat

I've thought about writing blog titles that aren't outright lifted from musicals, but... why?

So after I picked up my blanket on Saturday, the songs that came up next on the radio could only have been timed better if my life were a '90s teen sitcom. (Which, to be fair, it sometimes seems like.) I couldn't even tell you what radio stations my car has preset; I didn't change them after we got the car, because the person who owned it before me has reasonable taste in music.

I was expecting to be sad once I got the blanket, and possibly need to stop somewhere to pull myself together. But instead I was feeling reasonably happy, or at least okay. And then "See You Again" came on the radio, a song which until now I've not been able to listen to without tears:



And then "Unwritten" was up next, a song which fits well into the things I've been thinking lately about life being a story (and the Hamilton soundtrack I've been listening to nonstop--more on that anon):



So I sang along to both. Still happy. Happier, probably, that I was having such an upbeat day.

Goodness knows I know the power of songs for changing my mood one way or the other (and presumably everyone's, although I suppose there are some who don't interact with the world in this way)--there's a reason I've had to cull my iPod list a bit. No "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" for quite a long while now. I pulled Jason Forbach's "Revolutionary" from the list after one weepy listen while I was mid-run (and I'm pretty bummed about that, because it's fantastic AND I just bought it-- but I'll try it again in a few months). I even had to pick and choose from among which songs from It Shoulda Been You and Hamilton get on the autofill list and which don't--more recently bought songs that are sitting around unheard.

For the moment.

But for all the unheard and temporarily unbearable songs, and it's a list that's much longer than the few I just named, there are more that are very hearable. There are more that I can listen to and feel better for having listened. And there are the occasional surprises, like "See You Again" and "Unwritten," that show up on what could have been an awful day and make it even better. I love that.

So maybe this is what the beginning of healing feels like, or at least what one good day is like. Maybe I'll manage to scrape together a few more.