A Gift

“Music is the soundtrack of your life.” ~ Dick Clark

I will be the first to admit that I LOVE gifts. I like to give them and, yes, I absolutely love to receive them. I am not shy about my enthusiasm when it comes to gifts. One of the best gifts?… besides coffee or time with a friend? ~ music! Sorta predictable, right?

Remember mix tapes? I use to keep my tape recorder right next to my radio so that any time a song came on that I loved I would press record to add to that next mix of songs I was working on. Or, as I got older, I became a little more sophisticated and would take hours to record a favorite song from one album and then another from another album and so on until I filled up a one-of-a-kind tape of my very own!

Well, when I was about 17 years old my brother gave me a mix tape for my birthday. It was yellow (so very cool). Now, before you judge and think to yourself, “how cheap”, I beg to differ! You see, my brother was in college at the time. I missed him a lot (not sure he ever knew how much I missed having him around). I have also always adored my brother so any gift from him was gold to me. He couldn’t afford much considering the ages and stages we were at that time in life. But he gave me a cassette tape with a bunch of songs that he really liked. Wow! To me this meant: 1.) he thought of me, 2.) he wanted to share something about himself with me, 3.) he understood my addiction to music, and 4.) he might just think I was somewhat cool enough to listen to his music! This mix tape was a gift I always treasured and kept in my car and played endlessly… and, every time, it made me think of him. One of the songs was some punk rock version of “Summer Nights” from Grease. Ha! It was definitely a song that pretty much mashed up my love for Grease and his love for punk.

You see, when you share something like songs that mean something to you with someone else… its personal. Special. I know we don’t do the whole mix tape thing much anymore but think about the playlists you may have or the Pandora stations you are partial to, the radio stations you prefer … it says a lot about, yes, your taste in music, but also a piece of you or a part of you for those moments in your life. It tells a story. Don’t you think? A few years ago I ran a marathon. I still have the playlist that I listened to during the endless hours of training I had to do for months to prepare for that marathon. It was the same playlist I had playing as I ran the marathon. When any of those songs come on the radio I immediately think of when I was training.

Do you have songs or playlists that bring back specific times in your lives? Have you ever shared those with others? Maybe not as a gift, but instead shared music to show a particular song or group that you really like or get excited about and think someone else just might, too. Or maybe it’s difficult to say something so you share a song instead.

What about mix tapes? Did you make them? Or, perhaps, you received a special one as a gift? Tell me about them. What songs were on it? What/who did you think of while listening to it?

I love the memories songs create. ♥ Thank you to my “son of a preacher man” brother for giving me one of the most special gifts EVER! ♥

~ Becky ♥ ~