Music Therapy: A Memoir

As a young child, I discovered that my only safe haven was in my own bedroom. Among the four lilac-colored walls, I would sit at my white, wooden desk and lay down my rugged black music binder. One would think I was constructing my own bible from the myriad of booklets and copies stacked one after another.

Careful not to destroy the neck, I pried it open. Flipping through crinkled memories, I found a perfect piece to soothe my racing mind conjuring up a mixture between irritation and melancholy. Line by line, I ran my fingers across the staffs like a rain drop traveling down to the bottom of a windowsill. I could hear the symphony playing in the back of my mind as I swayed in my quiet abode.

With each breath I took, the notes on the paper came to life. The piece slowly became a part of my soul, engulfing me into a story I was now the main character of. Over time it created a barrier between the cold outside world and my peaceful imagination. The binder became my body guard ready to force back anyone willing to mess with me. Music was the beginning of the most beautiful relationship I would still be involved in to this day.

As years turned into over a decade, I added more than a hundred pieces to my binder. Like an aged wine it matured into the most decadent and refreshing substance I could have ever tasted. The difficulty of each song only made my love for them more prominent. Every day I found new ways to expand my knowledge of their stories; dissecting lines piece by piece and picking apart each measure with every note.

To this day the wrinkled binder rests on top of my keyboard on the west side of my teal-colored walls. Since graduating high school and taking on more responsibilities, the binder collects dust from time to time. Without even trying to reason, it flies open ready to continue where we left off. Like a hopeful long-distance relationship wanting to work out for the best, I visit it when I am able to, that is until the distraction of outside forces come to tear us apart again. Within that minuscule amount of time, we smile, laugh, argue, get frustrated, and come to terms. When the entranced moment halts and the binder has closed, a sense of deprivation has quickly entered the space between us as if it was a child being torn away from its mother. I have promised that when the time is right, we will find our way out to escape this wall of reality keeping our love for each other barricaded. It waits patiently until I return. But we both realize that we need each other to stay alive in the near future. It will cling to my side wherever I go, now and forevermore.