If you ever see me around, I'm almost always listening to music. The only time I'm not is when I'm talking to someone or when I've forgotten my headphones--which actually is one of the few things I almost never forget. It's not that I'm antisocial or anything, but music has a purpose in my life.

1. Radio kid life never dies, apparently.

All through high school, I was a diehard radio kid. I loved it so much and was always listening to new music as much as I could to try and keep up since we were a Top 40 Pop station. I would turn on new stuff while I was doing homework and listen and re-listen until I could get a good feel for a song and whether or not I should bring it up to our GM.

2. Need for connection.

I do enjoy feeling connected to people, despite my introvert tendencies, but I don't generally like to interact with strangers in large groups. If I'm on a bus ride without a close friend or walking alone, I can feel lonely sometimes so I'll usually be listening to music or reading a book--or both--just so I can have some sort of human connection that makes me feel comfortable.

3. Emotions are a lot.

In just one playlist, I can feel about 20 different emotions--okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. I make a lot of playlists because I have a lot of emotions and sometimes they become too much and I need something to direct them somewhere productive.

For instance, my breakup playlist has a pretty good mixture of sad music and some more empowering, upbeat stuff that I'll skip through based on how I need to feel. Sometimes I feel dead tired, but I know I need to get hyped up for something, so I'll shuffle all my music or a playlist and just skip to the upbeat, dancey stuff. It's just easier to deal that way.

4. Distractions are literally everywhere.

In general, I have a hard time focusing on one thing since I'm a born-and-raised multi tasker so if I'm somewhere like the library, I struggle a lot to focus on whatever paper or project I'm working on and I refuse to go to quiet floor, for a different reason that I listen to music. My solution to this is to listen to music while I work on something because it's hard for me to focus on more than the two things and sometimes I'll drown out the music anyway.

5. The fear of silence is very real.

I'm sure you've been somewhere that it was so quiet that you were actually just a little freaked out. That's what the fourth floor of Bracken is for me. When it gets quiet, I always think that something bad is going to happen or I will start hearing weird noises and I'm just not into it. My quickest fix for it is to put on my headphones and just start blasting my music.

6. Need some sort of stimuli to keep me awake.

For several years, I've had jobs that have made it so I couldn't go home until pretty late and I've hung out with my friends until two or three in the morning on more than one occasion. I am for sure not a morning person and I hate coffee so I need something to keep me awake.

My something is music. As soon as I decide I'm going to get out of bed in the morning, I've got music on and I'm usually humming or singing along. If I'm tired and I've got to drive somewhere late at night, I will roll my windows down--weather permitting--turn up the radio, and sing as loud as I possibly can. It's better than any energy drink, honestly.

7. Pure enjoyment.

Honestly, I just love music. Like half of my phone storage is music and I'm not even mad about it. I love to dance and sing and act out songs and just have a good time and I don't think that'll ever change.