A few years back, I met someone with whom I had an almost immediate connection. We had fairly similar tastes in music, and what was more, they were one of the few people who understood, as I do, that music can be a mechanism for accessing memories. Our friendship quickly developed as we started trading song recommendations back and forth.

It was amazing to me because I had never had something like this before. I called this person my “music friend,” because that was really the foundation of the whole thing. I had thought that I would never find a friendship like this, so it was especially devastating when the connection went sour.

Time and distance, of course, work their own wonders. I look back on that experience now and marvel that I allowed a single person to encroach on my relationship to music – something that’s so intrinsic to who I am that, moments after introducing myself to someone new, I’ll often say “…and I’m obsessed with music.”

I haven’t yet found another person who “gets” music on that same level as my former friend did, but these days I’m more and more okay with that. It could be a sign of maturity, and I’m sure there’s some truth to that aspect, but I think that more to the point, I’m allowing music itself to be my anchor, rather than a person. As I said, it’s a part of me. And no fizzled friendship can ever take that away.