Sometimes I think the powers that be deliberately inflict me with illnesses in order to slow me down enough to acknowledge and address the non-mandatory things that I need to accomplish in order to improve the quality of my life. Certainly, without the forced down-time, I would never voluntarily commit the time and effort such tasks require. This weekend was one of those occasions; forced to stay indoors and limited to the activities contained within; I cleaned up my computer's hard-drive, de-fragmented, re-connected with some neglected friends/family, and most importantly: I reintroduced music into life.

Ever since I can remember, I've felt a deep emotional connection to music. I certainly have the most eclectic taste in music of anyone I know - you can find me listening to everything from Christian Alternative to Death Metal to Britney Spears to Billy Joel. I'm not partial to anything in particular, just whatever moves me at the time and compliments a good mood or improves a bad mood. Music has the ability to completely transform my emotional state, and it's not typically the lyrics that affect me the most, but rather the rhythm and notes of the tune.

I think my relationship with music likely stems from my years in dance classes and consequent love of dancing. There are few things more anxiety relieving and elating to me than dancing to great music until I can hardly stand anymore. Similarly, just the act of listening to a great tune while driving in my car or working out at the gym has the capacity to substantially influence my disposition.

That said, in the past I've always made an effort and priority to maintain a respectable music collection, along with a variable investment in the pertinent audio technology(s) of the time (yes, that includes circulating through 3 failed iPod's). But somewhere and somehow my life's soundtrack slowly and quietly disintegrated into everything else I needed to remember and routinely accomplish.

Fast forward a couple years and my driving entertainment has become limited to whatever happens to be playing on 91X at the time with a small gym-bound portable mp3 player which has housed the same ~50 songs for well over a year. But that's all changed now - this otherwise innocuous weekend has afforded me the sorely needed opportunity to gear up on ~4 gigs (and counting) of a most diverse collection of music along with the chance to research and purchase a 4 gig car mp3 player and a remarkable little 32 gig player.

Bring on the world, I've got a new soundtrack! ^_^