Not sure how you live your outside world life but I’m quite the pain in the ass sometimes. I’m moody, broody, irrational and a perfectionist. Stubborn and unrealistically driven. Sometimes I feel like a machine and have to remind myself to smile. I have this annoying one-track mind where I’m like a horse with blinders on and I only see what’s ahead and when I’m all business, I mean it. I can be utterly impossible in my expectations. That doesn’t always make for a fun existence.

But then there’s my alter ego, the one that I live with and protect like a small child, my most relatable ally. The one that peeks out from the shadows when the headphones come out and the music goes on. The smile crosses my face effortlessly, every impossibility about myself melts like the Wicked Witch of the West. I close my eyes and they act as a teleporter, bringing me to crammed spaces where the energy radiating off the people around me is as euphoric as the track playing in my ears. I dance around and sing, hands up in the air… The elation I get from a great arp or the mental massage from the perfect track progression… My imagination goes wild and sometimes I’m in the mountains, sometimes I’m at the sea. But funny how when music is playing, I’m always happy.

I’ve accepted my role as introverted social slacker in one part of my life and I go through the motions with all the emotions that come along with that. Like a leashed puppy that doesn’t want to go outside, I still do after some coaxing. But my true love, the pasture where I can roam free, it isn’t measured in acres it’s measured in decibels. I spend a lot of time in headphones because of this.

I know I’m not alone.