I was never really one of those people who had their headphones on twenty-four-seven in high school. In the hallways at school, on the way home, in the car. No, that came later.
The summer before I began college, I needed to buy a new wallet. I decided to buy one with a cross-body strap. That was the beginning of a new era for me.
On my first week in a new town, I got bored during a walk so I put my headphones on, put music on my phone, and conviniently, I was able to put my phone in my wallet. That was the primary reason I didn’t always have my headphones on. Because I’d have to hold my phone.
But this new wallet enabled me to listen to music twenty-four-seven. While on the bus to campus, on the walk back to the apartment, while making breakfast and washing the dishes. It’s an addictive thing. The ability to always zone out and not give a damn about the world around you.
And then in March 2021, my last pair of headphones stopped working. This was probably the third pair I’d gone through in that single academic year and I was officially done.
I wasn’t wasting my time and money trying to buy another pair of headphones that would stop working within months.
But I needed the music.
My best friend and I took a walk around town towards the end of the semester. We went clothes shopping I think. And remember wanting to play some music and since I didn’t have any headphones and she was with me, I played it out loud.
Full volume, not giving a damn who heard.
I remember during school, my parents and quite a few of the neighborhood parents would complain about those people playing the music too loud of their cars. But I have to disagree. I think everyone should have a soundtrack to life. There are many in our daily lives. Yes, in the car. And what about in grocery stores and shopping malls? And the people playing music in their apartments and the beats filtering through the doors and walls into the hallways and through the vents into their neighbir’s room? Concerts and movies? Everywhere.
And it’s a beautifuo thing when you shift between soundtracks. When I have “Pehli Baar” from Dil Dadhakne Do playing on my phone on a loop because it’s one of my favorites and just as the eighth or ninth round comes to a quiet, I hear one of my neighbors playing the paino version of some anime song that I cannot recall the title of but was beautiful through his laptop a floor below me. And I wait at the railing a few minutes, simply listening. Because that is what life feels like in this moment. And then I step away from the railing and go back to my own floor and turn on Netflix and listen to the Gilmore Girls’ theme song and sing along.
It’s a beautiful thing – how many soundtracks meld together. How many songs are remembered and felt.
I say, as long as you’re not obnoxious about it, let your music be heard. I sure as hell will always be listening to mine.
