The song that used to be yours

You knew every word. You had opinions about which version was better, which album was the real one, which track you would defend to anyone.

Music was not on in the background of your life. It was part of how you knew yourself.

Somewhere it became furniture. A thing that plays in the car between errands, or in the store while you shop, chosen by no one, meaning nothing.

You stopped seeking it out. You stopped playing the songs that were yours, the ones tied to a particular summer or heartbreak or version of you that was just becoming herself.

It is easy to see how it happened. The house filled with other people's sounds, other people's playlists, the practical noise of a life being run.

And a private pleasure, one that asks for nothing and produces nothing, is often the first thing to go quiet when there is no room left.

But that pleasure did not leave you. It is waiting in the first three notes of a song you have not played in years, ready to return the second you press play.

So here is the way back, and it is simple. Think of one song that used to be entirely yours.

Not a song for the family, not a song for a mood anyone else shares. A song that belonged to you before you belonged to everyone.

Play it today, alone, at the volume you actually want. Let it do what it used to do.

You are not being nostalgic. You are checking whether the woman who loved that song can still be reached.

She can.

Things worth remembering you love, from back when music was yours:

What song, if it came on right now, would I turn all the way up?

See you tomorrow.