healing is when the songs finally become just songs again.

eunary_ky

-because some memories stop hurting quietly, and what used to ache just feels… far away now.

‎at first, music feels dangerous. ‎ ‎every lyric sounds like it was written specifically to ruin your day. one random song in a café, inside a jeepney, during a late-night walk, and suddenly you are back in memories you spent weeks trying to escape. because some people do not just leave traces in places; they leave them inside melodies too. inside choruses. inside quiet background music you never thought twice about until love attached itself to them. ‎ ‎so you start avoiding certain songs. ‎ ‎you skip them the moment the first note plays. you remove them from playlists because hearing them feels too much like reopening emotions that barely finished settling. even artists you once loved become unbearable because every lyric sounds like a reminder of what you lost. and maybe that is what painful endings really do—they turn ordinary things into emotional landmines. ‎ ‎but healing arrives quietly. ‎ ‎one day, a song you used to cry to starts playing again, and instead of falling apart, you simply listen. not because the memories disappeared, but because they no longer control you the same way. the lyrics still remind you of them a little, but now they also remind you of who you were during that time—someone trying their best to love sincerely. ‎ ‎and suddenly, the songs stop belonging to the sadness. ‎ ‎they become yours again. ‎ ‎that is the strange beauty of healing: you slowly reclaim the parts of yourself you thought pain had ruined forever. the cafés become normal places again. commuting on a bus with your earphones in starts feeling peaceful instead of lonely. the playlists stop sounding like grief and start sounding like survival. ‎ ‎because maybe healing was never about forgetting people completely. ‎ ‎maybe it is about reaching a point where memories no longer feel like chains around your chest. where you can hear the same songs, walk through the same streets, and think about the same person without feeling your entire world collapse afterward. ‎ ‎and maybe one day, your favorite songs will no longer remind you of who left. ‎ ‎they will remind you of the version of yourself that survived being left behind. ‎