“Sorry I left you. I left you cryin’. . . .” — Jodeci’s “Stay”
I’ve always been quite the music junkie. I grew up on music. It wrote the chapters of my life. From a knock-kneed little girl sporting red, crinkly ponytails and spinning Al Green and Funkadelic albums on the living room floor of my aunt’s house, to a blossoming young woman searching for God and Jesus in an avalanche of gospel music, to a young mother, wife and business owner de-stressing to what now seems the last remnants of real R&B, I was music, like some people feel they are hip-hop.
Lately, though, things have changed. There hasn’t been too much music in my life. Every now and then, I’ll pump up Pandora as I ready myself for the day, but for the most part, sometimes it appears that the music has died. *excuse me while I have an “American Pie” moment*
As I reflect on the past few years, I can’t pinpoint any one occurrence that may have played a role, but I can say as I wallow in the death throes with my former lover, if I don’t make some changes, I’m going to die right along with it. You see, we all possess a tool that helps us through this thing called life—and that’s a mighty long time according to Prince. Either we use those tools for their intended purpose, or we lose track of who we are, what we’re doing and where we’re headed.
I lost that because my sole focus had become “saving” my people. Thinking, erroneously, that if I provided enough information, enough knowledge, enough examples of action at work, they’d see what I’d seen and react in the way I’d reacted. I guess you could call that my Christian-saving moment. What I’ve come to realize about my people is that they’re stubborn, ignorant and set in their ways. If there is to be any change among them, they’ll have to initiate it themselves. To place myself out there every day with only a handful of others who see the truth for what it is, is to spend my life in constant confusion too. And I can’t allow that to happen. I can’t and won’t give my music the right to die—at least not right now, not while I’m evolving.
Instead, I’m going to spend the next chapter of my life concentrating on me, my family, my life, my music. The simple things that once served as my constant pride and joy. And as I watch the music return, the loyal friend that rode shotgun with me into this world, it’ll be like Lauren Hill sang, “nothing even matters.”
What is your tool? How have you nurtured it? Have you allowed it to lapse too? If so, what are you going to do to get it back?
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