I 'graduated' from the eighth grade around 4 years ago. Everyone treated the ceremony that took place that day as if we had just graduated from college and had just earned our degrees, ready for the next phase of our lives. That day I could not help but sit on a table and play around with the plastic cups, hiding various items that ranged from keys to pieces of candy underneath them, and asking my younger brothers to guess where the items were hidden. While everyone else danced, and laughed, I could not help but continue to play with the plastic cups, silly games that at least my younger brothers enjoyed. Having been transferred from a different middle school, the day seemed silly to me as I had little to reminisce. Time was not in any rush, in fact I swore a turtle could have walked faster than the speed of both the hour and the minute hands on the clock in the gymnasium. My mind was crossing into different dimensions, and in the background I kept hearing the,“Just hold on...just hold on...just hold on” coming from whatever song was playing at that moment. When would my mind finally cross into eternity?

Right before my mind completely vanished into oblivion, my dad briskly shook my left arm and handed me a black and white Kohl's box. In a sarcastic voiced I replied, “A gift from Kohl's, they shouldn't have” and already figured out what I would find inside. I put the pizza box-sized piece of cardboard aside and told my parents that I would wait later to open it. I was about to jump back into my 'dimensional crossing', when I could not help but notice how the box was 'starring' at me, and in an almost ominous manner whispering, “Open me.” I at last succumbed to the pleads and decided to open the thing. I was hoping to find the secrets of the Universe inside, the cures to all of the diseases, or even some mysterious artifact, but instead I found a T-shirt.

I picked the paper-white shirt and as I was extending it to get a better look at it I heard a “crack” from the box. Something had fallen into it, and when I looked inside I saw the glimmer of hope I was desperately seeking, an object that I could possibly rely on, something that could possibly show me what I had lost at one point, an iPod.

Prior to middle school my life was a lot more memorable. I remember being incredibly active. I ran, I played outside, I did a lot more with friends. The choices I made prior to middle school were silly and not often ones I have trouble making today, but no matter what I did I had fun. However, there was an incomplete puzzle, with all the pieces filled in on the outside and a large portion missing from the inside.

In my elementary school years, I would often receive questionnaires with questions that answered who I was and what I liked to the rest of the class. While all my other classmates' questionnaires looked similar to complete essays, mine always ended up looking as if the conclusion were missing. When it came for me to answer my questionnaire in front of my class I answered all of the questions, but one.

I remember during my early years how much music was essential to the lives of my parents. Music was always played at my house, but I never understood why my parents enjoyed listening to it. I was happy, running around, playing with friends. My parents were happy listening to wonderful music. I acknowledged these two facts, but the second one was always the one that kept pestering me, left me wondering.

“What is my favorite song?” If I had had my iPod back then, I would have been able to answer that question just by simply looking at which song in my iPod has the most plays. When asked this question on my questionnaires my mind would go blank, it would lose itself as a person would get lost in a maze, trying to find the right way to go but never succeeding. My mind would ponder the question, but the light bulb would never light up. “Yes, no, the color blue, running, playing with friends, video games” were all answers to previous questions. Millions of songs exist in the world, and I could not even name a single one as my favorite.

What I had as a child was a simple understanding of the world, I would enjoy doing the most simple activities such as playing ball with my brother or running around the block just to enjoy the scenery. Over time my thoughts became like the cycle of a caterpillar, however, unlike ending as a butterfly, I started as one and the cycle worked backwards.

My iPod today has over a thousand songs, and my computer holds many more. Since the day I first received my iPod I have treated it with great care, and I carry it around where ever I go. However, even though I have taken care of it, it is now showing signs of raggedness, ancientness. Today I can no longer listen to the songs that I would once listen to through my headphones. Perhaps in a few more years I will not even be able to listen to any sound from the old device. I have very few precious possessions, my iPod being one of them. At one point in my life I fell into a maze in which I had a difficult time finding my way out of. The day I received my greatest piece of technology I managed to kill two birds with one stone. Not only was I able to find meaning, find my favorite song and finally answer the question that had always bothered me, but today it has also led me little by little out of the maze that I had once fallen into years ago. The songs in my life are not an actual representation of the actual songs my iPod carries, the songs are in fact the actions that carried meaning in my life, they are the actual choices themselves. I started out incomplete and gradually became more and more as I grew up. What my gift taught me was that life gradually gives certain choices. At first I followed them, not knowing how important they were. The choices I receive today resonate in my mind, always reminding me of how important my actions are. Although I still wander inside an endless maze, I know that as long as I have my iPod, I will have music to keep me going as I gradually find my way out.