Mixes to sigh to

Here was the difference between my college roommate and me.

My mixed CDs were organized by genre. There was a "chill" mix. A "running" mix. A "Friday night" mix. So each one kind of had the same general music. This makes sense to me. I also dated my mixes...because for some reason, knowing the month and year they were made is important.

Hers were mixes, in every sense of the word, and she didn’t try to hide it. The titles of hers were "Complete Randomness" (so true). "Ya’ll Fixin’ for Some Good Music" (this was created for a spring road trip one year to my old stomping grounds in Tennessee, and again, so true). One was called the "Mix-a-Long."

I recently read a book that quoted C.S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves. He talks about how certain friends bring out very good and very specific qualities in you. So, for example, one friend may be able to draw out your sense of humor like no one else. Or perhaps you never laugh as deeply and as truly as you do when you hear one particular friend’s stories. I liked thinking about how this plays out in my own life.

Our mixed CDs were indicative of the differences between my dear roommate and me. And as much as I think my neatly organized and greatly put-together mixes were/are, there was always something so refreshing about hers. Throw caution to the wind! Who cares if anything works well together... if the end of one song will naturally flow into the beginning of the next. It doesn’t matter. They’re just fun to sing to! To rock out to! It’s just a mixed CD!

This morning on the way to work, I popped in "Complete Randomness." First it was R. Kelly’s Remix Ignition. Then I moved on to Ani DiFranco’s As Is. Dispatch’s The General. And 2Pac’s Me and my Girlfriend. I smiled because, well, how can you not when you’re singing "it’s the freakin’ weekend baby, ‘bout to have me some fun...?" And how can YOU not smile thinking about me singing 2Pac?! As I sang along, I could feel that specific sense of ease that she—and her mixes—was able to pull out of me. The sense of ease that told me to take a deep breath because it’ll be OK.

She helped drive me across the country when I moved to Cali. I remember waking up in a hotel in Vegas in tears, unable to breathe. What was I doing? I couldn’t move the West Coast alone?! We needed to turn around. I couldn’t do it. She took me in her arms, stroked my hair, made me laugh, and said, yes, I could. We would continue our drive, and everything was going to be alright. She didn’t throw one of her mixed CDs in at that moment, but she may as well have.

That friend was able to pull out from me big, deep, everything-will-be-alright sighs, because sometimes I forgot (forget) to breathe.