Every song is a breadcrumb on the tangled path back to who I’ve been. In this series, I let shuffle decide which memories resurface, giving each musical phase its turn in the spotlight—and seeing what stories wake up with the sound.

I lack the ability to actively recall memories, for the most part. I have no clue why, and I’ve never really had the kind of consistent insurance coverage that would’ve let me explore that area—or any of the similar weirdness, like how I just drop into a black void when I fall asleep and wake up with zero recollection of dreams, if there were any at all.

Context drags memories out of me whether I want it to or not, though. And nothing has a more powerful ability to do this than music.

Whenever Heather Small’s “Proud” comes up on shuffle, I’m immediately transported back to watching Miranda on Hulu in 2018 with my mother, sharing the pure, unadulterated joy of laughing so hard together.

My sister likes to remind me that I don’t remember my childhood—and she’s right, for the most part.

But whenever I hear “Hot Blooded” by Foreigner, suddenly I’m a kid again, jumping around and dancing on the couch in the living room.

“Wannabe” by the Spice Girls? I’m lying on the bottom bunk of my blue metal bunk bed, listening to the cassingle in a blanket fort that one of my older cousins helped me build.

“Scheiße” by Lady Gaga is me walking across Sanford Bridge on UGA’s campus, leaving Rutherford Hall, headed to either North Campus for a debate or downtown to get drunk.

“Lion Hearted” by Porter Robinson instantly takes me back to writing code at BlinQ Media in 2014, standing at a makeshift desk assembled from random Ikea furniture.

“Cannonball” by Damien Rice? I’m laying on the floor of my high school bedroom, sulking and listening to it, when my cousin Elizabeth comes in to check on me because it sounds so sad.

Recently, I’ve been listening to pretty much everything I’ve ever liked. It’s kind of liberating to not give a fuck about how cool or trendy my music taste is anymore. My favorites span the entire genre spectrum, but looking back, I can absolutely see how they’ve grouped themselves into phases.

Whenever a song from one of those phases pops up, I’m often zipped right back to that time in my life. Sometimes it’s tinged with nostalgia, sometimes with pure, unfiltered joy.

So, I plan to explore these memories—how the different musical phases in my life, when they show up on shuffle, break into my present and unlock memories I can’t otherwise recall on demand. There’s some overlap and lots of exceptions, so I’ll get into those, too. But mostly, I’m hoping this series of blog posts will help me unlock and share some of my story—bits I can’t always access without a soundtrack.

Phases

• Phase 1: Hot Blooded, Spice Girls, Shania Twain, Britney Spears, and Clint Black
• Phase 2: Damien Rice, Of Montreal, Jump Little Children, Rilo Kiley, and Neutral Milk Hotel
• Phase 3: Lady Gaga, Dubstep, Ultra Trance 09, Kesha, Xtina, CRJ, and Robyn
• Phase 4: Eurovision, Drag Queens, and Jonny McGovern
• Phase 5: Nothing and Everything

And if I’m honest, maybe that’s the real magic of music—how it cuts straight through the blackout curtains in my mind and lights up the rooms I forgot existed. I can’t always choose what comes back, or when, or why, but that surprise is its own kind of gift. So, if I keep letting the music play, maybe the story will shape itself, cobbled together in flashes and choruses, until I can finally see more of who I’ve been—all the versions of me that are still somewhere in the sound.