Music through the Years

I sang for the first time in a really long time at a place besides church the other day. I was put last minute into a fundraiser and had about 3 days to prepare something, so obviously I grabbed a song from Les Miserable that I sang for my senior high school choir recital.

I hadn't really thought of or sung this song in about 8 years and when I started singing it, I kinda felt this flood of emotions. (Now I know people consistently tease me about being really emotional, but this was a genuine wave of emotion.) I was amazed at how the words of this song had changed for me. Traditionally, it's the song in the play about unrequited love and heartache. As a high schooler, I thought it held hope and optimism in it too and those were the emotions I would channel when singing it.

However 8 years later, with a bit more life experience and having actually had a broken heart, I realized that this song was just about heartbreak. And the words hit a very true, very real place in my heart. And it was if my heart broke all over again as the words reminded me of painful situations and as I sang I relieved moments in my life over again.

Now that sounds a bit dramatic, but my point to this whole thing is that we are constantly changing. And the music that inspires and encourages us one moment, might no longer encourage and inspire the next. That as we consistently change with every experience, those experiences consistently change how we view the world. That every moment life changes a little for us. Things take on new meaning, things lose old meanings. Things that once matter a lot, matter little after time. You gain new perspective and hope and despair as you grow and change and evolve.

The songs that once brought you hope can be the exact songs that break your heart all over again.

And this is good and wonderful and human.

I hope that music keeps continuing to change for me. Cause that means I am continuing to grow and experience and evolve and change. It means I'm wonderfully human and living my life.

I wonder what the song will mean for me in 8 more years?