Sometimes you’re on a collision course with heartbreak. Sadness. Love. Excitement. I don’t know. Whatever it is, you hit it directly. In baseball, they call it a no doubter. The bat meets the ball head on. Boom. It’s a home run, and you know it with every ounce of your being. 

Music has a funny way of getting you there. But it’s more than music—there’s something bigger happening. Something you can’t explain. Something metaphysical that pounds your heart with a meat tenderizer. Maybe it hurts, but it wakes you up. The heart pumps and pumps and pumps. Beats and beats and beats. So attuned, you have to yell. Scream. Sing. I don’t know. It’s that Free Fallin’ mentality. What is happening? 

You have no clue. All you know is that you feel it. No other emotion is even possible. It’s pure. Uncontrollable. Bigger than you. And when you look around and realize it’s just you—no ghosts, no friends, no family. Just you and that fuckin’ feeling—you’re mystified. How can it be? 

How did this emotion just take over your world? Dance with you? Dazzle you? Maybe even leave you daunted? It’s real magic, if you ask me. Not some card trick, but the kind of magic worth believing in. It does more than just entertain you. It lets you know you’re alive.

Some people feel that a life of passion is grandiose. Not attainable. I think it's an idealism worth dreaming about, forget a life of more things. I’d rather laugh and cry. Melt down or ignite. Whatever feeling you are, I just want to meet you head on.

*This article is part of the ongoing Morning After series: short, reflective pieces on thoughts, feelings, and ideas about life. They’re kind of like well-manicured journal entries, written the morning after a night out.