A few weeks ago, I finally felt comfortable enough to attend my nieces chorus concert at her Middle School. Granted this was a big step for me, but being there once the audience was settled and the concert itself was commenced and there were many songs played that I found very relatable and even known allowed me to appreciate music many more and realize how important it is to my life regarding allowing myself to be more regulated.

Music has been something that I can deeply appreciate, connect, and relate to things in my life as a young child to the man that I am today. In my life being able to regulate myself even before my autism diagnosis has been something that I have done from having portable music devices in cassette, CD, CD-Wav, MP3 and now the ability to stream music from an app such as Amazon Music has been one of the most saving graces of me being able to get through those challenges in my life.

I do have quite a diverse taste in music. From my father listening to the oldies and later country music, to the variety of music of my mom’s and sister’s life and then progressing into my own tastes including finding the uniqueness of nu-metal and alternative. I can still remember when I had purchased my first Linkin Park album over two decades ago and the conversation that my mom and I had about the lyrics that were sung.

As harmful as some lyrics can be, they often are not what I can relate to. It can be the elements beside the lyrics that I can very much relate to        and allow me to be regulated in my safe place. It can be as diverse as a religious prophet’s CD that my mothers’ coworker advised her upon when I was at one of my most challenging times in my life to even some of the most heinous stuff, it can be what I need to be able to calm myself down when the going gets tough and there is a need to be able to distance myself from situations that can be bothersome to me.

As life has evolved for me and accepting that it is perfectly normal to make myself comfortable when I need to as being an autistic person is not a thing that has to always be shielded from whether that is behind closed doors and even in the public world as it safe to do so. I do believe it did have to involve for me leaving the only world I had known nearly two decades ago to go to trade school and see my peers that had similar challenges allow themselves to do the things such as having to wear headphones to begin to allow myself to see that it is perfectly normal to use something such as listening to music through those ear defenders, headphones or whatever they may be to be able to get through the challenges in life.

As my niece had thanked me for attending her concert the day after, I said to her that “Music is Everything” because it is what keeps the world going when the rest of it seems to be falling apart or be challenging for myself.