Paige Hassen: JRN

It’s not a new fact that the state of Michigan has been in a stay-at-home order since March 13th of this year. That is over five weeks at home without school, without friends, and without family outside of the family at my home. If I’m being completely honest, last week I didn’t leave my house from Tuesday morning until Saturday night. Yes, I know that’s bad but there’s not really any reason for me to leave my house right now and it’s been too cold to walk my dog.

The one thing that has kept me company and gave me constant happiness throughout this whole thing is music. I cannot put into words how much I love music or how much it means to me. It’s kind of weird how much I like it for not being able to play an instrument or sing very well. There’s just something music does to me that makes me feel. It gives me emotions that I didn’t even know I had. From the power of one song, my emotions can switch by the tiniest change in beat. Songs can make my heart flutter. They can make we want to sing at the top of my lungs when I don’t really know how to sing. They can make me want to dance when I don’t really know how to dance. They make my heart, my mind, and my body soar.

Music helps me to leave reality for a little bit and live in my own world. It helps take my mind off of everything going on in the world right now. A huge wave comes over me when I listen to a song that I love or the voice of one of my favorite artists. It takes over and gives me this amount of happiness I didn’t know was real. Music has been the only constant in my life for the past 5 weeks, and it’s going to be the thing that gets me through quarantine.