Soldier of Love

Today:

The song "Party Like a Rock Star" blasted on the stereo system as the adults sat on the beige chairs at the table under the beige umbrella.

You're only 13 once. It was her party so she could listen to whatever music she wanted even if the lyrics were shouted over and over as if the band couldn't think of anything else to write: party like a rock star party like a rock star party like a rock star.

It's a different world: teens are connected at the hip to their iPods. I regret I bought my iPod shortly after it first arrived on the scene so I paid $250 and it can only hold 500 songs.

Now you can get an iPod for $250 that holds 10,000 songs or some other great amount. I listen to my iPod on the dock I bought that has an HD radio so I can listen out loud in my apartment instead of with ear buds.

Right now I listen to the Sade CD. "Soldier of Love" is the hypnotic song coming through the speakers as I type. I'm going to import vocalists to my iTunes library so I can have a long playing soundtrack for nights when rock-n-roll won't do.

The list:

Diana Krall

Corinne Bailey Rae

Sade

Norah Jones

kd Lang

Those are the ladies.

I have a Sting CD which is pretty good too: Sacred Love.

Would like to buy an early Sade CD with her classic songs on it. She hit the scene when I was a disc jockey in the 1980s and though I didn't play her on the radio I always loved her music. She was too mainstream to play on late night college radio.

A play list would look something like this:

The Chills

Naked Raygun

Das Damen

Sonic Youth

The Replacements

Dinosaur Jr

I will always remember my college years: they were the happiest time of my life and then I had the breakdown.

Can I say today is better? Yes.

You do not know when you are first diagnosed how your life will turn out. Your life could turn out to be better than it was before you got sick. That is the ideal to strive for: to live your best life.

I'd much rather listen to vocalists than noisy out-of-tune music. I will delete Soul Asylum and the others from my iTunes library and upload the vocalists instead. Will even nix u2's Achtung Baby because I've played that CD numerous times and it's gotten boring.

Gone will be the Everclear albums as well.

The music no longer appeals to me though the lyrics to "One-Hit Wonder" I will always remember: about how people can't hurt you unless you let them. That song is off So Much for the Afterglow a good CD. I used to like the early Everclear music too.

Goodbye, jumble!

All that loud music is gone.

As you move along in your recovery things change.

I'm not the same person I was when I was 22. Life changed me. I don't hold the same values. I aspire to live with compassion and forgiveness for all human beings. Will I fall short? OK: we all fall short.

My goal is to stay out of the hospital long-term.

The day the music died was a heartbreaking time in my life. I was forced to decide: remain stuck in the past or roll with the change and move into the future.

It can be liberating to let go.

Tomorrow I will listen to the new iPod music.

What fell away was not meant to be. We look so longingly at the door that closed that we are unable to see the door opening before us.

Recovery is a door. Music was the key that unlocked it. My first therapist told me that it's possible I didn't get sick any sooner because I was a disc jockey involved in a career that gave me great joy.

So I urge you: listen to the song of life. Dance when you get the chance.

You will get older. The old music will no longer do.

Be brave and change your tune.

Goodnight.