Music That Will Make Your Soul Smile

The holiday blues are real folks, and they can last way past the holidays. Pulling yourself out of a “funk”, “rut”, “dark place”, “deeply depressed state”, … whatever you want to call it, … it can be tough and feel impossible. Bottom line, it sucks. If you’re going through it, you’re not alone.

I don’t think there’s just one thing you can do to battle depression. It takes a lot, but hey - it’s worth it. A couple of days ago I had some song lyrics stuck in my head. It was more like 3 or 4 words that I wasn’t sure what a couple words were. That made it hard to figure out the song. Anyway - thanks to my awesome friend, Melissa, I figured out the song. Then I listened to it. And I listened to another. And another; heck I’ve pretty much been listening to music ever since. I used to love music.

One sign, for me at least, that it’s depression is that lack of interest in pretty much anything. The worst part of that is that you don’t normally see it yourself; at least not right away. If you’re lucky you have people casually (or forcefully) point it out. Of course, if you’re depressed you probably see that as an insult and get offended.

…Maybe pushing everyone out of your life.

…Blowing off the people you normally rely on.

…Sinking further and further into hermit-tude.

Then one day you obsess over a few words from an obscure song and you realize you don’t listen to music much anymore. Hell, you don’t really do anything anymore. Then you wonder what happened and try to figure out when it started. That’s usually my wake-up call, my id screaming “YOU’RE DEPRESSED, SNAP OUT OF IT“. There I go insulting myself, telling myself to snap out of it like it’s that easy. Boy, do I piss myself off sometimes.

But I was kind of right. I found the song, listened to different versions of it, and loved every second. Well, looking back it felt like I did which is even better for me. Finding a happy place in such a dark place is like finding a unicorn on an island full of zebras. It’s not going to happen, but you’ll always wonder “what if”. Then you start remembering what it felt like to not be sad. Maybe just for a short time, but still.

And like I said before, it’s not always just one thing you can do to get happy, but you have to start somewhere! I start with music. So, I thought - “Hey, why not put together a playlist?”. So here it is, it’s still a work in progress because there is so much music out there. In fact,