Those Special Songs--A Paragraph a Day

There are a lot of songs that are special to me, especially ones that I remember from long, long ago when I was very young.  Music was extremely important to me back then, for reasons that I've only recently figured out.  Since my father was in the military, our family moved a lot--every other year or so, and sometimes more often than that.  The only real stability in my life came on the radio--the songs that I heard in San Diego were more or less the same songs that I heard in Norfolk when we moved there.  I could depend on the music for a relative sense of consistency, pretty much the only consistency that I had in my life back then.  If we moved in the summer, I'd hear the songs on the radio before I left, and with a few differences I'd be able to find a radio station in the new place that played the same Top 40 songs.  And so music entrenched itself into my life as a solid, consistent companion, sometimes the only real companion I'd have for long periods of time.  And that's why music still means a great deal to me, and why when someone else has a strong attachment to something else, I try to withhold judgment about whether such an attachment is an addiction or whether it's healthy or whatever.  I know that some things just happen in our lives, and some things help us get through during times when we really need help.  Songs will always be an important part of my life, and I'm very grateful for them.