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I’m shocked that I haven’t annoyed myself with how much music and writing consumes my life. I’m sure this isn’t something new, music and writing consume my life like it does for others. Sports may consume someone else’s life, maybe reading consumes yours, or exercise.
To me, when something consumes my life, my life revolves around it. I’m constantly thinking about the things I’m writing, when I’m writing, what I’m writing for, is my handwriting neat enough? Whether I’m writing a small note at work, my homework for the day in my planner, or an essay for a class, I worry about the appearance of my writing. I don’t know if I do this because I’m a “writer” (it has taken me years to be able to call myself this) or if I do this because I’m just crazy and over analyzing things. Either way, writing is a permanent part of my life. It can start with a word, a picture, a sentence to spark an idea and in my mind it’s as if the piece has already been written and my brain is just waiting for me to put pen to paper or keyboard to Google Doc.
Just this piece of writing started with an idea I had to write about different genres of music. Now that I think about it, only I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about writing. But this, this is my passion. It consumes my time, my thoughts, my days and nights. I can’t remember a day that has gone by when I didn’t write.
The connection between writing and music is as present to me as the connection between doctors and hospitals, for me there can’t be one without the other. I have always idolized Billie Joe Armstrong’s song writing, the front man of Green Day has written almost every song on their 13 studio albums. While reading and rereading his lyrics when I was younger all I hoped for was to be able to express myself through writing as well and artistically as he did. Reading and rereading Green Day lyrics in the thin booklet that comes with CDs while the music played is what got me so interested in writing. As soon as I realized that these lyrics were words someone thought of and jotted down, maybe not even meaning for it to be a song, it was like a light bulb went off.
I began writing any little phrase that came to mind, or feeling I had. Four full composition notebooks and a couple years later here I am still completely in aw when I listen to music or read the lyrics. I still remember the first green day song that amazed me lyrically, “When I Come Around.” At age 9 I wrote out the lyrics in my notebook and told my mom I had written them. Really? She said, “No” I admitted but I remember thinking “but I could write something like this.” Ever since then everything I have written has had meaning: a word, sentence, paragraph or essay. 10 years later, I’ve written so many essays, poems, and response papers I lost count. I don’t know if I’ve even come any closer to being as good a writer as Billie Joe Armstrong but I do know l will continue writing.
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