I picked up the guitar again after twelve years

Dear Delyara, My fingers hurt within ten minutes. I was terrible. It was wonderful. The guitar had been sitting in the wardrobe for so long that it had become almost symbolic — proof of a former self I had once loved and then slowly misplaced under motherhood, work, money, tiredness, and all the practical scaffolding of adult life. I used to play in the evenings when I was younger, before every spare hour already belonged to someone or something else. Last Sunday I took it out. I expected awkwardness. I did not expect grief. The first chord made me feel like I had opened a forgotten room inside myself and found furniture still in there. Dusty, yes. Untouched, yes. But still mine. I played badly for half an hour and came away feeling more alive than I had felt in weeks. That is not small to me. Because hobbies are not childish extras. They are often the evidence that a person still exists beneath function. I needed that evidence badly.