There’s a little ritual I have.

Most nights, when it’s too late to be awake but too early to sleep, I pick up my guitar, sit on my bed, and play.

It’s not for anyone. No cameras, no recordings, no performances. Just me, my guitar, and whatever ghosts decide to show up that night.

Because music, for me, has never just been about sound.

It’s about remembering. About feeling something too big to say out loud. About calling back the things I’ve lost and letting them sit with me for a while.

Some nights, I don’t even sing real words—just hum the kind of sad, broken melodies that only make sense at 2 AM.

Other nights, I whisper old lyrics like prayers.

And for a little while, the world makes sense again.

At least, until the last chord fades.

The First Song I Ever Played

I was eleven when I first held a guitar.

It wasn’t mine—it belonged to my dad. One of those old acoustic ones with the wood worn smooth in places where hands had played it a thousand times before.

I don’t think he ever expected me to care about it.

But I did.

I remember sneaking into the living room, running my fingers over the strings, pretending I knew what I was doing.

And one day, I played my first real song.

“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

Three simple chords. The easiest song in the world.

But to me?

It felt like magic.

Like I had just unlocked something bigger than myself.

Like suddenly, I had a way to say all the things I didn’t have words for.

I don’t know if my dad was proud of me that day.

But I like to think he was.

The Songs That Raised Me

I never really fit in as a kid.

Too quiet, too restless, too lost in my own head.

But music?

Music never made me feel like I had to be anything other than what I was.

I grew up on the kind of songs that make you feel like you’ve lived a hundred lives before this one.

Johnny Cash. Bob Dylan. Springsteen. The kind of voices that sound like gravel and regret, like cigarettes and late-night confessions.

And then there was Kurt Cobain. Layne Staley. Chris Cornell.

Men who sang like they had demons inside them.

And I guess, in a way, that made me feel less alone.

Because if they could scream their pain into the void and turn it into something beautiful—maybe I could too.

Singing Like No One’s Listening (Because No One Is)

I don’t sing in front of people.

Not because I can’t. Not because I don’t want to.

But because music is the one thing in my life that doesn’t feel like it needs to be performed.

It’s one of the only things I don’t have to prove to anyone.

And maybe that’s why I love it so much.

Because in a world where everything feels like it has to be shared, posted, judged—music is just mine.

It’s the thing I turn to when my head gets too loud.

When I miss people who aren’t coming back.

When I feel like I’m drowning, but I don’t want anyone to save me.

It’s the thing that reminds me I’m still here.

Still breathing.

Still fighting.

Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

The One That Got Away

I used to think I’d do something with music.

Play in bars, record an album, maybe even make a little money from it.

And maybe I could’ve.

But life has a way of pulling you in different directions.

And somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that music wasn’t a real option.

That I wasn’t good enough. That it was just a hobby.

That no one needed to hear what I had to say.

So I let it slip through my fingers.

And now, I wonder if I made a mistake.

Because every time I pick up my guitar, I feel it.

Like there’s something inside me that still wants to be heard.

And I don’t know if it’s too late to chase that.

But damn, I wish I had tried harder.

The Songs I’ll Never Write

You ever hear a song and think, “I wish I wrote that”?

I feel that all the time.

But you know what’s worse?

The songs I almost wrote.

The lyrics I scribbled down and then threw away. The melodies I hummed once and forgot. The stories that lived inside me but never made it into words.

I think about them sometimes.

The songs that could’ve been.

The ones I might’ve played in front of someone who needed to hear them.

But I’ll never know.

Because I never finished them.

And maybe that’s the saddest song of all.

Why I Still Play

So why do I still do it?

Why do I still pick up my guitar when no one’s listening?

Why do I still sing to an empty room?

Because music never left me.

Because even when I pushed it away, even when I told myself I wasn’t good enough, even when I let the dream slip away—it stayed.

And maybe that’s what love really is.

Not something that demands to be seen.

Not something that has to prove its worth.

But something that stays.

Even when you don’t think you deserve it.

One More Song Before I Go

I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything big with music.

Maybe I missed my shot.

Or maybe, someday, I’ll find my way back to it.

Maybe I’ll play in a dive bar somewhere, just once. Maybe I’ll finally finish writing a song that means something.

Maybe I’ll let someone hear me, really hear me, for the first time.

I don’t know.

But for now, I’ll keep playing.

I’ll keep singing to the ghosts.

Because even if no one else ever hears these songs—

At least I know they were real.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

—J