Writing Is Good For The Soul...

Music has always been therapy for me. And more than that - it’s been a companion, a mirror, and sometimes even a lifeline.

When I was growing up, I lived in dance studios. For sixteen years, music and movement shaped my world. Counts, beats, rhythm. I learned to feel the instruments beneath the lyrics, to understand the rise and fall of a melody before I ever fully understood the words. Dance and music together told stories that didn’t need dialogue. The body spoke. The music carried it.

In my teen years, music became something different. It wasn’t just something I moved to - it was something I leaned on. Songs started saying the things I didn’t know how to say out loud. They spoke about friendships shifting, first heartbreaks, family struggles, and all the confusing in-between moments of growing up.

I’d been writing since grade school - making little stapled books and filling notebooks with poems. But in high school, that writing evolved into something new. I started trying to write lyrics of my own. I wanted to capture feelings the way my favorite artists did. I wanted to turn emotion into melody.

Then came breakups. And all new friends in college. And my mom’s cancers.

During that season, lyrics and poetry became more than creative outlets - they became survival. Writing helped me process what felt too heavy to carry quietly. I have boxes filled with handwritten pages - lyrics, poems, half-finished verses - tucked away like time capsules. When I pull them out now, it’s a trip down memory lane. Each one holds a version of me, frozen in ink. It’s a way to remember moments, good or bad, letting them stay on paper in the past so you can move forward.

The poems mostly trace my real-life experiences at whatever moment I was living in. The lyrics are a mix - some rooted in my story, others imagined because I believed they would make a beautiful song.

Poems can stand on their own. They’re complete in silence.

But lyrics? Lyrics are only half alive without music. They need breath. They need harmony. They need the heartbeat of a melody behind them.

Music does something sacred for the soul. It reaches places conversation can’t. It holds grief without trying to fix it. It celebrates joy without needing explanation. It sits beside you in loneliness and magnifies love when your heart feels too full. There’s something about the way a song can meet you exactly where you are - and remind you that you’re not alone there.

I shared some of the songs I’ve written (and the music they’ve been set to) in an earlier post. But for those who can’t quite sit through country music - my daughter included, lol - I’ll be sharing some of the lyrics here in upcoming posts.

I won’t tell you which ones are pulled from my own life and which ones are stories I imagined. I’ll take a page from Taylor Swift and let you guess. 

Hidden Away
(you can listen to it with music behind it here)

Verse 1

Two years, two years, we were trying
But we never found the perfect recipe
So many times we threw out what we started
Forever was never our destiny
When you left, I thought I didn’t matter
I cried ‘cause I thought you didn’t care
I lost more than you would ever know
Some secrets are too painful to share

Pre-Chorus

You moved on and I said I was happy
But happiness doesn’t come easy to me

Chorus

Now here we are on our own journeys
I thought they’d end in the same place
And even though my heart wants to hate you
You’re the one I keep hidden away

Verse 2

Summer nights, I stare at the dark sky
Thinking ‘bout the adventures we had
I still remember the single rose you gave me
On that car ride before it went bad
You found a life I couldn’t give you
A blushing bride, all dressed in white
She gave you everything you wanted
And I lost every dream that night

Chorus

Now here we are on our own journeys
I thought they’d end in the same place
And even though my heart wants to hate you
You’re the one I keep hidden away

Bridge

Today I saw you on the sidewalk
Just another face in the crowd
But every step you took right past me
Echoed love we lived out loud
Time keeps moving, so do people
But some ghosts don’t fade with age
You’re not mine, and I accept it
Still you’re written on every page

Final Chorus

Now here we are on our own journeys
Still walking different roads of fate
And even if my heart forgives you
You’re the one I keep hidden away

Outro

Not a scar, not a mistake
Just a love I couldn’t make stay