I’ve been thinking about digging out my mp3 players and filling them up again as something to listen to on my breaks at work. The break room is quite large compared to the one at the other shop, so there’s less of a chance of multiple loud conversations and TikTok videos going at the same time and irritating my audio processing disorder. I can handle the levels in that room, and there’s always other places within the building I can go (or even to my car) if I need a bit of quiet.

I’ll totally cop to wanting to revisit those old high school days where I could distance myself from everything and focus only on whatever I’m listening to. I keep coming back to that as a possible way to unplug from all the excess noise and online presence I currently find myself in. [If it worked in the past, why not try it again?] These days the only time I see earbuds is when a customer’s having a day job conversation on their phone while checking out, otherwise most people’s media intake is on speaker. While I’m not complaining about that per se, it can sometimes be overwhelming to my APD (especially if they’re the type that likes to have the reel repeat itself multiple times) because I have to work twice as hard to focus on what noises and voices I need to focus on at that moment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s more than wanting to revisit those 80s memories once more like I’d mentioned previously. That’s a big part of why I want to revisit this listening habit. But I’ve always had APD to some extent though I only learned what it was in the last decade or so, so a lot of the listening issues I had during my school years suddenly make more sense. And my wanting to hide away with headphones, turns out, wasn’t just a matter of wanting to escape life for a while, either; it was also a way to shut out the sounds and voices that irritated me.

And to weave it all together: whenever I did cocoon myself with a set of headphones and music playing on my Walkman (or even listening to music on my radio in an otherwise quiet house), that’s when my mind was calm. And that’s when I was able to fully and successfully lose myself in the mood that music created, and thus use as influence and inspiration for my creative outlets. Calm audio input means calm audio process means calm focus.

And I sense that that is what my brain needs right now, once more. Some kind of aural realignment, something to bring a calm clarity and perhaps a refreshing inspiration.