I don't want to fade out I want to fade in.

I was listening to an old mix cd on the way to work today. My commute is about 1.5 hours so I've got time. For some reason the mix got me thinking about my relationship with music.

When I was younger, music was my life. I listened to music all the time. I volunteered to DJ a weekly radio show at a local college. Nearly every week I would visit an independent music store to browse for new music, for something I hadn't heard before. I read music magazines and had favorite radio shows. We went to live shows all the time. I will never forget Adam Ant's silver leather pants. Dear lord!

Honestly to this day, the best show I have ever seen was Suede. When they played Heroine, time stopped, the earth stood still. I was, for that brief moment in time, totally enraptured. Nothing else existed, nothing else mattered.

If you asked me then I would have told you without a doubt that I was headed for a career in music. I was going to be a DJ or a record store owner or work for an independent label.

Why didn't I pursue that path?

I am not really sure. Maybe because I didn't know how? Maybe because I thought a career "helping people" would be more meaningful? Maybe because I started to drift with the tide?

In any case my life has little to do with music these days and I am starting to realize how much I miss it. I rarely even listen to music anymore. The commute is often filled up by NPR or talk radio and it is time for that to change.