Person by Person, Heart by Heart, Song by Song

It’s late, and I’m lying in bed thinking about life.

Not one particular thing.

Just…life.

The kind of thoughts that seem to show up when everything gets quiet and there’s nothing left to distract you from your own mind.

I’m thinking about love.

I’m thinking about loss.

I’m thinking about hope.

I’m thinking about music.

I’m thinking about the people who have crossed my path, the ones who stayed, the ones who left, and the ones I never expected to find.

And I’m thinking about why I started writing these blogs in the first place.

I want my kids to know me.

Not just as their mom.

Not just the person who cooked dinner, worried about them, worked, yelled when they needed yelling at, laughed with them, cried with them, or probably drove them a little crazy sometimes.

I want them to know the woman underneath all of that.

The girl I was.

The dreams I had.

The things I’ve learned.

The people I’ve loved.

The music that shaped me.

The things that broke my heart.

The things that put it back together.

I want them to have my stories.

Because someday, when I finally exit this planet, I want there to be pieces of me they can come back to.

Something they can read when they miss me.

Something that makes them laugh.

Something that makes them say, “Yep…that’s Mom.”

Something that lets them see the world through my eyes for a little while.

Maybe they’ll understand me a little better.

Maybe they’ll discover something about themselves in my stories.

Maybe they’ll hear a song I wrote about and go listen to it, knowing that it meant something to me.

And maybe that’s the most important reason I’m writing any of this.

Because we don’t get to stay here forever.

But the love we leave behind can.

The memories can.

The stories can.

And sometimes, the words we leave behind can become a little piece of us that lives on.

The past couple of years have taught me a lot about that.

I’ve lost some incredibly important people in my life.

People I loved.

People who were part of my story.

People whose absence leaves an empty space that doesn’t simply disappear because time keeps moving.

Grief changes you.

It reminds you that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

It reminds you to appreciate the people who are still here.

And it teaches you that losing someone doesn’t mean you stop loving them.

You carry them.

In your memories.

In the stories you tell.

In the things they taught you.

In the songs that suddenly make you think of them.

But here’s the thing I’ve also learned…

While I’ve lost people, I’ve gained some pretty amazing ones too.

And some of them came into my life in places I never would have expected.

TikTok.

I know.

TikTok.

Who would have ever thought an app where people share videos, music, stories, opinions and pieces of their lives could bring real friendship?

But somehow, it did.

Some of the people I’ve met there aren’t just names on a screen anymore.

They’re friends.

Real friends.

People who message me to see how I’m doing.

People who check in.

People who listen.

People who support me.

People who notice when I’m not quite myself.

People who can make me laugh from hundreds of miles away.

People I may never have crossed paths with in my everyday life if it weren’t for music and a little corner of the internet.

And honestly?

That’s pretty amazing.

Because life has a funny way of bringing people to us when we aren’t even looking for them.

Music has done that for me my entire life.

It has brought me memories.

It has brought me experiences.

It has brought me people.

Some of the most amazing people I’ve met have come into my life because of a song, a band, a concert, or simply a shared love of music.

And maybe that’s why music has always been so much more than music to me.

It’s connection.

It’s memory.

It’s emotion.

It’s healing.

It’s the soundtrack to the chapters of our lives.

There are songs that can take me back decades in a matter of seconds.

A song can put me back in a car.

Back at a concert.

Back in love.

Back in a moment I thought I’d forgotten.

Some songs don’t just bring back memories.

They bring back you.

The person you were when you first heard them.

And then there is hope.

Hope is something I’ve thought about a lot.

Because life can be incredibly hard.

Sometimes it knocks the wind right out of you.

Sometimes you wonder how you’re going to get back up.

And sometimes hope doesn’t come from inside you at all.

Sometimes somebody else gives it to you.

A friend who says, “I’ve got you.”

Someone who believes in you when you’re struggling to believe in yourself.

Someone who sends a message at exactly the right moment.

Someone who reminds you that you’re not alone.

I’ve learned that lifting people up doesn’t make us smaller.

It doesn’t take anything away from us.

When we celebrate someone else’s success, we don’t diminish our own.

When we encourage someone’s dream, we don’t lose ours.

When we give somebody hope, we don’t run out of our own.

We create more of it.

I believe there is something incredibly powerful about the energy we put into the world.

Positive energy attracts positive energy.

Kindness creates kindness.

Hope creates hope.

And negativity?

Negativity can spread just as easily.

I’ve learned that I have to protect my own energy.

Not because I don’t care about people.

I care deeply.

Probably too deeply sometimes.

But there is a difference between helping someone through a difficult time and allowing someone else’s constant negativity to become your environment.

When I’m around that constant heaviness—anger, bitterness, complaining, tearing people down, always looking for what’s wrong—it weighs on me.

I feel it.

And I can’t live there.

There are reasons for that that go all the way back to my childhood.

Some things you experience when you’re young stay with you.

And there are certain kinds of negativity that take me right back to places I worked very hard to leave behind.

I don’t want to relive those feelings.

I don’t want to live in that space again.

So I’ve learned that protecting my peace isn’t selfish.

Sometimes walking away is healthy.

Sometimes saying no is healthy.

Sometimes loving someone means loving them from a little farther away.

And sometimes you have to choose the energy you allow into your life.

I want to surround myself with people who believe there is still good in this world.

People who lift others up.

People who celebrate.

People who encourage.

People who can admit when life sucks without making negativity their entire identity.

People who understand that we can acknowledge the bad without forgetting that there is still so much good.

Because there is.

There really is.

I’ve seen it.

I’ve felt it.

I’ve experienced it.

I’ve seen people come together to help someone they’ve never met.

I’ve seen fans rally around an artist.

I’ve seen strangers become friends.

I’ve watched people chase dreams when the odds were against them.

I’ve watched someone receive one little bit of encouragement and suddenly find the strength to keep going.

Those moments matter.

We may never know how much a kind word means to someone.

We may never know what someone was carrying before we smiled at them.

We may never know whether that message we sent was exactly what someone needed that day.

That’s why I believe in lifting people up.

Because you never know what kind of ripple you’re creating.

One person helps another.

That person helps someone else.

Someone finds hope.

Someone keeps chasing their dream.

Someone feels less alone.

And suddenly, something that started with one small act of kindness has traveled farther than anyone could have imagined.

Maybe that’s how we change the world.

Not all at once.

But person by person.

Heart by heart.

Song by song.

And maybe that’s what I want my kids to understand about me when they read these someday.

I wasn’t perfect.

I didn’t always get it right.

I made mistakes.

I had hard days.

I carried things I didn’t always talk about.

I lost people.

I got hurt.

I sometimes felt completely exhausted by life.

But I kept going.

I kept loving.

I kept believing there was good in people.

I kept looking for the light.

And I hope that’s what my kids remember most.

Not that I had all the answers.

But that I never stopped searching for them.

That I never stopped hoping.

That I never stopped loving.

That I never stopped trying to lift someone else up, even when I was struggling myself.

Because maybe that’s what we’re all here to do.

To leave a little more love than we found.

A little more hope.

A little more kindness.

A few more smiles.

A few more memories.

And maybe a song or two that somebody will hear years from now and think…

“That reminds me of them.”

So if someday you’re reading this and I’m no longer here…

I hope you know this was me.

This is how I saw the world.

This is what mattered to me.

And if you ever miss me, put on some music.

Find a song that reminds you of me.

Turn it up.

Close your eyes.

And remember that somewhere in that song is a piece of the woman who loved you more than anything in this world.

But don’t just remember me.

Live.

Love.

Laugh.

Make memories.

Find your people.

Protect your peace.

Help someone who needs you.

Celebrate someone else’s victories.

Don’t let the negativity of this world steal your light.

And when life knocks you down, get back up when you’re ready.

Then reach back and help somebody else up too.

Because that’s what I’ve learned.

We aren’t here forever.

But while we’re here, we have a chance to make a difference.

And maybe the greatest thing we can leave behind isn’t something we can hold in our hands.

Maybe it’s a feeling.

A memory.

A song.

A story.

A piece of our heart that lives on in someone else.

Because in the end, it’s really not about how long we were here.

It’s about what we left behind while we were here.

The love.

The hope.

The kindness.

The people we lifted.

The hearts we touched.

The memories we made.

The music we left playing.

And if I’ve done even a little of that…

then I think I’ve lived a pretty damn good life.

Person by person.

Heart by heart.

Song by song.