It’s a Friday, but it’s not. I wake up and look out the window, expecting the clouds to fade away and reveal the sun’s shine, but the clouds haven’t moved. The shower water feels colder than it usually does, and my clothes don’t feel as warm as I remember. My cereal keeps me dragging through the morning, and I pack up my bag to get ready for school. Dad nudges me out of the door and loads me into his truck. “Aren’t you excited? It’s a Friday! It’s pretty much almost the weekend!”, he exclaims, looking towards my solemn fixation on the ground. “That’s true”, I say, forcing out a laugh. Where do these clouds get off ruining my Friday? I force myself to smile. “I guess since the weekend has already started, we can go back home!”, I remark. “No, you still have to close out the week”, he laughs. I let out a groan. Dad pulls out of the driveway, heads down our little suburban street, and scurries towards the school. I turn my head towards the window, close my eyes, and prepare myself for the day.

My eyes open and I’m lost in suburbia. The windshield drowns in water, like we’ve just submerged ourselves in the middle of a lake. The clouds remain stagnant above our town, and begin to cry. Thud. The car vibrates with every drop. Thud. Thud. It’s as if the gods have gotten into another argument and have started to take it out on us. The school materializes ahead of us, and Dad signals the final left turn. As we wait in the median, the rain and the signal line up. Thud. Click. Thud. Click. Each drop creates a resounding boom on the downbeat, then lets up for the signal to carry the offbeat. I wonder if Dad noticed that. “Hey Dad, do you hear that?” He looks over. Dad was a veteran in music. He’d played in several bands and had been drumming consistently for over forty years. “Hear what?”, he asks. “The rain and the turn signal!”, I exclaim. “I hear them alright”, he says. There’s a passive dismissal in his tone though, and I feel like he doesn’t really hear what I hear.

As much as I’d like to validate myself, I drop it. I know there’s no use trying to convince Dad of anything he doesn’t hear. He’s a percussion veteran after all, if he doesn’t hear it, he probably won’t change his mind because of me. Thud. Click. Thud. The clicking stops. We’ve made the turn and are pulling up in front of the school. Dad and I exchange I love you’s and I shuffle out of his car. The sidewalk ripples as I step on it, sending waves in every direction. Oh great, now my jeans are going to get wet. My jeans, surprisingly, get wet. I keep moving though; I know that dwelling on the dampness of my pants isn’t going to help anyone. It’s Friday after all. 

As I walk, I tap my right pocket continuously. I’m usually tapping to a song I’m listening to in a pattern that can only be compared to a child’s rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. Only this time I’m tapping to the sound of the rain and the signal. Tap. tap. Tap. tap. I tap harder on the first tap, and lighter on the second. I start to form melodies in my head. I start to hum. The tapping slows as the rain starts to fade away. The rain leaves space for me to improvise, so I do. Tap. tap. tap. Tap. tap. tap. tap. The more I tap, the more the rain fades until suddenly, it stops. I’m steps away from entering my classroom, and the rain just stops. Well, that’s weird. I mentally shrug, turn around, and walk into my first-period class.

Sometimes you wake up and feel like the day isn’t yours. Your body feels weak and your mind is just telling you to go to bed. You feel like your only option is to quit. For me, music is the only thing that can keep me going. This morning, I felt like there was nothing I could do to keep myself from getting down. Even my father, who had tried to cheer me up, didn’t have much of an effect. Music is like a friend. When you feel down, they know how to cheer you up. When you’re dragging through life, they are there to keep you moving.

Think about how a friend might push you to do a social outing. Sometimes you feel tired and don’t feel like doing anything with your friends, but they have another agenda. They want you to join them. Sometimes they can’t get through, but more often than not, they do. Most of those times, you have fun. I remember getting invited to things on a whim that I usually would’ve declined, but was pressured into joining. Going in, I’m usually pretty grumpy, but towards the end, I tend to have a lot of fun. 

Music can be that friend. Picture this: You’re sitting at home, and you’re not really feeling like doing anything, so you scroll through Instagram to pass the time. One of the videos you come across has a really nice sound, so you look into it. You climb down this rabbit hole to find out that the sound is Sh-Boom by The Chords. You listen to the song in its entirety. It doesn’t matter if you resonate with the sounds or the words, this song has lifted you up. Sometimes the song isn’t happy, but it gives you the words to describe feelings you don’t quite understand. Finding gems like Omg Did She Call Him Baby by Beth McCarthy and not ur friend by Jeremy Zucker helped me understand feelings that I didn’t know I didn’t understand. 

Granted, you might not like to listen to music. It might not resonate with you or you might not see the value in investing your emotions into it. Heck, you might just see it as a pile of sounds mashed together. However, whether you like music or not, I think it’s important to see the value in the messages music can send. There are a near-infinite number of songs out there and I guarantee that if you look hard enough, you’ll find something that you like. Music surrounds us in the world and there are so many cultures that share their history through music. There’s so much value in music; from interesting encounters to interpreting your emotions, the sounds that surround our lives should be appreciated, and I hope that after reading this, you pick up your phone and listen to a song or two.