Sometimes the things we love most don’t disappear suddenly. We lose them little by little, hidden inside our attempts to hold on to them. Music became something like that for me.

For many years, I tried to shape my life around music. I explored different paths, worked different jobs, and tried to rebuild my life in ways that would keep music close to me.

As my love for music turned into passion, I began to feel as if music was the only thing at the center of my life. At first, this made me incredibly excited and happy. When people move closer to something they truly love, they feel a certain energy inside themselves. I felt that too. I thought I could do anything as long as it was connected to music. But over time, I started to notice something else. The more I tried to get closer to music, the more I began to neglect the rest of my life.

I constantly felt like I needed to study more, learn more, and produce more. Eventually, that feeling turned into pressure. Worse, the pressure slowly began to damage my creativity. Maybe my biggest mistake was starting to see music not as a natural part of life, but as a massive problem I needed to solve.

The truth is, I never stopped loving music. If anything, I cared too much. But somewhere along the way, caring became controlling. Instead of allowing music to exist as part of my life, I started trying to organize my entire life around it.

Over the past few years, health problems, family responsibilities, and personal losses slowly pulled me away from music altogether. More recently, my father’s health struggles — and losing him last week — made me rethink many things about my life. After losing him, a lot of things that once felt important suddenly seemed less important.

A few days ago, after a very long time, I sat down at my piano again. When I placed my hands on the keys, the instrument felt both familiar and distant at the same time. But the moment I played the first note, it felt like hearing the voice of an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in years. Something inside me that had been silent for a very long time slowly began to move again.

This time, what I needed was a different perspective. In the past, I probably would have pushed myself too hard, created long practice schedules, and burned out again within days. Then I would spend weeks doing nothing and feeling guilty about it. So I tried something different.

I started with short exercises and a few scale studies. After that, I simply touched the keys for a while, played a few chords, maybe a few melodies. But the moment I felt tired, I stopped and rested.

What surprised me most was realizing that, for the first time in years, I was approaching music without guilt. In the past, I was always trapped between extremes: either working obsessively or abandoning music completely. Now, I’m trying to understand whether there is another way to keep music inside the natural flow of life. Maybe for a long time I treated music only as something I needed to “progress” in. Now, I’m trying to let it breathe naturally inside everyday life instead. Even realizing that I don’t need to take huge steps every day has been comforting.

Maybe what I need right now is not giant leaps, but small and genuine moments of contact.

So now, I’m slowly returning to music again — gently, and without putting pressure on myself.

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Featured image by Megan Nixon on Unsplash.