Brings Me Back

I would not be exaggerating to say that I grew up with music playing every morning on an old radio at my grandparents’ house. By then, I was already a footloose little dancer. Music was always there, filling the rooms before words ever did.

At home, music played often during the day, especially when my father was not there. I would dance and sing along even though I was too young to understand the meaning of the lyrics. It didn’t matter. My body understood before my mind ever could.

My mother had three or four music tapes that she played repeatedly, sometimes several times a day. At that time, her favorite song was The Lady in Red. Occasionally, when she thought no one was watching, she would slow-dance to it. In those moments, she looked mesmerizing to me. Soft. Happy. Free, if only for a short while.

Those rare moments stayed with me. They became inseparable from the song itself, engraved in my memory and preserved in a quiet, locked compartment of my heart that has never really opened again.

Another song that left a deep mark was It’s My Life. I remember it clearly, as if it were yesterday. The song came on the radio by coincidence while I was in the car with my family, on the way to the airport, about to leave to study abroad on my own.

My lips moved silently with every word but my body was singing loudly inside. My heart beat wildly, in perfect rhythm with the song, making me intensely emotional. I could not wait to leave everything behind. To leave what felt like hell. To finally be free.

As the years went by, I began to associate certain songs with different events in my life. Some belong to happy moments, others to drowning ones. Not by choice, but by coincidence.

Music would speak to me in its own way. It carried emotions that lived deep inside of me, emotions I often didn’t have words for. It comforted me silently, without explanation or expectation. It could lift me into a sudden, almost overwhelming happiness or pull me into a quiet, heavy stillness.

When those specific songs resurfaced later in my life, the reaction was immediate. I would feel happy or sad without any obvious reason. Only seconds later would the memory arrive, clear and cinematic, unfolding in my mind as if it had been waiting patiently all along.

Today, I know that I cannot recall all the events that have occurred in my life. Some memories have become unclear, foggy, for reasons my mind alone seems to decide. Time softens certain edges, erases others and leaves gaps I no longer try to fill.

But I am grateful that some memories are still accessible to me in another way. I can relive them simply by pressing play. A song is enough to carry me back, to slide me gently inward, into myself again.