A story about growing up, getting lost in stories and music, and slowly finding yourself.
How I Learned To Disappear
I learned how to leave home without opening the front door.
It started on a library floor, cross-legged, the smell of dust and glue and something old enough to feel important. I was supposed to be picking a book for a report.
Instead, I picked a way out.
I don’t remember the title, only that the cover promised a world bigger than my street and quieter than my house. When I opened it, the noise fell away. The arguing, the television, the feeling that I was too small to matter.
Gone.
In that book, kids were brave without trying. They said the right things at the right time. They ran toward danger and were changed by it. I stayed there for hours, until my legs went numb and the librarian cleared her throat like a warning bell.
Walking home, the world felt thinner, like I’d stepped out of color and into gray.
I chased that feeling everywhere after that. In songs blasting through cheap headphones, lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, letting lyrics explain emotions I didn’t have words for yet.
A three-minute song could wreck me, heal me, make me believe there was more coming:
something just out of reach but meant for me.
And then there was the first kiss. Awkward, brief, nothing like the movies. Still, it rearranged me. Not because it was perfect, but because it proved I could be seen. That someone else’s world had brushed up against mine and left a mark.
Growing up, I realized childhood isn’t about being innocent. It’s about discovering escape and then slowly learning you can’t live there forever.
The books closed.
The songs ended.
The kisses became memories.
But sometimes, when life feels too loud, I open a page, press play, or remember the way my heart raced the first time I felt chosen by a moment.
And for a second, I’m lost again.
And safe.
My God, My Music, My Life 