Healing for Her: An Unshared Playlist

Tranquil. 

There was once a girl who prayed for that word as if her life depended on it. Not because she believed the world deserved peace—but perhaps because she believed the world didn’t deserve her prayer. 

She learned, quietly, and painfully, to hold everything together until it either disappeared or got better. With a predetermined belief of becoming a strong person, it was her defense mechanism she knew at best, the one she clung to, and the only thing she trusted. Her silence slowly became an armor. And her room became her sacred sanctuary. 

It was not grand but rather quiet, old, and a little dusty. The corners held the scent of old books and daydreams. Her favorite teddy bear still sat by the bedroom window, a relic from a simpler time when she was just a year into life. There were also her experiment notes, her imaginary equations, and her failed potions that she convinced herself to be a witch. In this space, she was not just a daughter or a student. She was a poet. A pianist. An academic who loved science. A young advocate who believed—truly—that she could help save the world and its underlying problems. 

Once, she was a dreamer. 

Once, she was a child who believed in light. 

“Peace,” she would whisper like a mantra. 

But the world grew louder. The organ in the living room no longer sang—it wept. Its chords deepened, grew heavier, more dissonant. The notes sounded like grief, and in that noise, she found a mirror to her own heartbreak. Her tears silently flooded the room, as if her sacred space cried with her. She lost someone who adored her art.

She was wrapped in mourning with dark clothes, of ancestral legacies passed down like burdens. Everyone was absent in comfort even the things that give her life like her most possessed instruments showed distance from her presence. She was a child grieving, and yet somehow, invisible in her grief. She longed for the sounds of a bright day and a territorial experience with the songs she once wrote about. The ceremony took away such passion and was left unfinished. 

She stayed silent. She locked her doors. 

Not out of rebellion—but preservation. 

The days blurred. Minutes bled into the morning that offered no relief. Her routine became mechanical: get some sun, pretend to prepare for the day, go to her room, regret. She blamed time for everything but along the lines of regret—she knew she blamed herself the most. Grief, that shadow with no name, haunted her. It robbed her appetite, of sleep, of energy. And yet the hardest part was not the pain but the guilt of praying for peace for the soul who rested. 

People say grief softens when we find ourselves again. But what if you never really come back the same? 

Four years have passed. 

She still dreams. Still believes in a world worth helping. The music, which had once fallen silent, slowly returned. Not through the old organ but through a ukulele, a gift from her mother. A symbol, perhaps, that brightness still had a place in her world. 

One afternoon, she opened her long-abandoned phone. Hidden there was a playlist she had quietly made during her darkest days—a letter to herself, written in melody instead of words. She hadn’t shared it with anyone. It wasn’t made for likes or followers. It was a gift to her future self. 

And when she pressed play, it felt like coming home. 

A soft reunion. A whispered “You made it.”

The playlist was titled “Healing for Her.” It was not made to cure everything, however, it was to hold something like to cradle the weight of what she’d carried. It was a collection of songs that had seen her wounds, her losses, her loneliness. But it also shimmered with hope: soft tunes, light strings, lyrics about being seen, the arts, and portrayed the image of hugging her younger self. These were the songs that reminded her of who she was before her trials that clouded her sky. 

It was music that did not erase pain—it witnessed it. 

Nor did it preach healing. It volunteered. 

She listened as if time had folded in on itself where she watched her broken and silent chapters of her life were now sitting beside her, finally being offered what she had once needed: understanding, patience, and the peace she does deserve. 

The playlist became more than just a background noise. It became a lifeline. A new kind of journal where the songs marked milestones of her feelings. Each addition was a sign that she was still growing. Still choosing to stay. 

Today, she is more alive than she has been in years. 

She has learned to love herself again, gently. Music is no longer a hiding place—it is a companion. It presents a power that connects humanity and raw feelings together. Some musicians showed up like friends. Some songs feel like mirrors. In them, she has rediscovered parts of her identity that once felt permanently lost. 

She’s created a new playlist since. Each one tells a story. They are her modern-day diaries, her written letters in audio form. Some are joyful. Some are silly and fun. One is dedicated to healing, a chance to uplift her dreams. 

Chances always co-exist with every version of us in time. Sometimes, all it takes is a small, trembling leap of faith to trust who we are back then, who we are now, and believe in who we are tomorrow. 

Healing doesn’t always arrive like thunder. At times, it’s just a girl pressing play on a song that understands her in ways words never could. And perhaps one day, without realizing it, she’ll feel how music sounds like peace again.