Music

One of the things that was tainted by Matt’s death was music. You’d think something so huge, so varied, would manage to escape the ravages of the aftermath of suicide. But no. I almost completely stopped listening to my personal music collection. I replaced the hole with podcasts. And that wasn’t all bad - for example, last fall in Austin I attended a VIP event with the hosts of one of my favorite podcasts (“God Awful Movies,” also “The Scathing Atheist” and “The Skepticrat” and “Citation Needed”) and that was an amazing experience. Hell, Matt Dillahunty personally extended an invitation to stay with him and his wife if I wanted to visit Austin but couldn’t crash with my sister.

But why am I posting today? Well I’ve been trying to reclaim music. What works best is music that I listened to/liked before Matt and I were serious. So there’s a lot of 1990s classics, like Nine Inch Nails and Korn (my first rock concert ever). And it’s been pretty great. I do love music. It digs down into this visceral part of me and extracts all sorts of emotions. Some of them do make me think of Matt, like the Incubus album I bought junior year of high school, or anything played during the 2000 tour of Metallica/Korn/System of a Down/ Kid Rock/Powerman 5000 at Texas Stadium where we were in the mosh pit (and so hot! But feeling so alive!). But some of the music just reminds me of a time where I felt optimistic and hopeful. And I can certainly use a lot of that.

So I will continue trying to reclaim music. Listening to lyrics yelling “dead bodies everywhere” certainly seems less than hopeful, but maybe some raging against the machine via music will let me be more positive in other aspects of my life. I might as well try anything at this point, right?