December 13

I don't want to say that the last five years have hardened my heart. Maybe they have, a bit, or maybe I've just learned to shut off my emotions when they're inconvenient in order to keep moving forward. But regardless of the reality and the reasons, I completely lost my crap while watching the season finale of The Voice tonight.

I was only peripherally paying attention when Kelly Clarkson and Billy Gilman began singing 'It's Quiet Uptown' from Hamilton. But for reasons beyond my understanding, it drew me in, and as I listened to the vocals and the rise and fall of the instrumentals, it felt painfully familiar. So I looked up the song's meaning and as it continued playing in the background, its inexplicable appeal came into focus: it's about struggling to cope with the "unimaginable" grief of losing a son. And it does such a beautiful job of putting that pain into words --and, honestly, into a mess of largely disconnected thoughts and phrases-- that it spoke to me. Because that's what it's like: it's disconnected and inconsistent and lonely and too quiet and too loud all at once. But somehow, this particular song transforms the cacophony into something beautifully lyrical.

Although it was something of a painful experience, it's always a blessing to feel like someone else understands.