I'm 90% Sure Music Wouldn't Help...Then This Happened.

To say I’ve had a bad week would be quite the understatement. I crash-landed home after a trip, got into an argument with someone very close to me, and found myself repairing and apologizing for a past version of myself—one I rediscovered through this person’s anxiety about asking me for something. So although I hadn’t “done anything wrong” in the present, I still needed to take accountability for a past version of me.

I had to, on the one hand, hold my boundary and, on the other, kindly apologize for the impact my past self had on this person. This delicate tightrope of holding a boundary with love while also taking true accountability is a skill that feels new to me, and I hold it tenuously. It takes tremendous presence and energy.

My sleep has been all over the place, seemingly unrelated to anything I do or try health-wise… and I’m simply accepting that I don’t have answers right now.

When I wake up at 3 a.m. after that two-day argument that still isn’t quite done, I decide to head out in my car and park somewhere. Maybe there I can feel safe enough to unravel feelings that feel too vulnerable to write down at home. With only my phone light and my journal, I write everything I’m feeling in the parked car.

It’s been several years now since my decade of deep depression… and journaling was one of my ways out. I write down everything I’m thinking and believing, look at it on paper, and ask myself: Is that true? How do I react when I think that thought? What does this thought feel like in my body when I believe it?

Can I accept and love that feeling instead of running away, numbing out, shaming myself, or shaming someone else? Who would I be without that thought—without that story? What if the opposite could also be true?

And in the middle of facing all the feelings I don’t want to feel—but know from experience that even though it sucks, it’s worth it—cop lights show up behind me.

Even though I wasn’t doing anything illegal, the cop asks me questions that are clearly, 100% “inappropriate,” shall we say. Which gives me more things to journal about.

I drive back home… and have a full slate of work to do that day, starting the morning with one more very tough but very necessary—and thankfully, in hindsight, very healing—conversation with this person I hold dear.

After a long day, I go to sleep and wake up the next morning at 3 a.m. again. I work through all the delayed anxiety, anger, and fear that interaction with the cop brought up. I write it down, I forgive him, and I decide, from the heart, not to label all cops going forward, so that I don’t continue the injustice I faced. The good news: it’s my day off. The bad news: I don’t have energy for much of anything. I’m in a daze—three days of bad sleep, intense emotions, apologies, forgiveness.

I decide to take it easy and try to read a new fiction book. Unfortunately, I hate this book. It’s dark and violent and just not my vibe.

I look at the piano. I’m 90% sure music will not do anything for me. I’m sleep-deprived, exhausted by life, mentally fogged, emotionally run-over.

I remember one question: Am I 100% absolutely certain it won’t help?

What would three minutes do?

And I remember the words my mother had written on her mirror shortly before she died: “Today I choose joy.”

And against everything I’m thinking, feeling, and believing, my body gets up, walks to the piano… and I begin to play.

Although I’ve played and taught piano for many years, I’ve never once touched a jazz piece. Jazz is both delightfully and obnoxiously difficult. I’m attracted to it in the way a middle school girl kicks a boy in the shins because she doesn’t want to admit she likes him, despite her best efforts. I’m learning the basics; my playing is rife with errors… and it feels fucking amazing.

And I remember: while inner work brings inner peace, joy is an action, a practice I must choose. It can happen without effort, but today, I had to do it.

Three minutes become three hours. I set aside all the challenges of life and remember to choose joy. My day off no longer feels so off-track. It feels turned around, turned toward joy.

And when I don’t think I’m “worth it,” when I don’t think I “deserve” joy in my life, I do it for my mother. I do it for my students. I do it for the vast lineage of people behind me who experienced some of the deepest grief and pain—far beyond what I can imagine—and still chose to celebrate life through making music. I do it to pave the way for my own integrity in the face of challenges. I remember countless moments when music held my hand as we walked together through the deepest grief and the most lighthearted, playful moments of my life.

And I do it for you—dear reader, student, past student, future student, or friend. You deserve joy. And it often takes practice. But only you can choose it.