Finding Myself Again

The rain poured like a melody from the heavens, soft yet persistent, as Aanya stood beneath her orange umbrella, the city lights blurring into watercolor dreams around her. The headphones resting on her ears played a gentle hum, but she wasn’t really listening. Her thoughts were louder.

There was a time, years ago, when Aanya’s voice had filled rooms with joy. Singing had been her everything—before school projects, before exam stress, before she traded her passion for practicality. In middle school, she’d once won a district-level singing competition, her voice raw but full of promise. But as the years passed, her song was drowned in the clamor of grades, expectations, and endless to-do lists.

“No one makes a career out of singing,” her relatives would scoff.
“You need a stable future,” her teachers said.
And she had listened.

By the time she reached college, Aanya had forgotten the thrill of hitting the perfect note or how her soul would dance every time she sang under the stars. Her notebooks were now filled with formulas, not lyrics.

It wasn’t until the final year of her engineering degree that she heard herself again.

She had wandered into an open mic night by accident—meant only to pick up a friend. The moment she stepped inside, something shifted. A girl her age stood beneath a single spotlight, strumming a guitar, her voice tremulous yet strong. Aanya stood frozen. It felt like she was looking at a version of herself she had left behind.

That night, she went home, dug through an old storage box, and pulled out a tattered notebook labeled “Songs by Aanya.” Dust clung to the cover, but inside, her words were alive.

She began to sing again. Quietly at first, late at night when the hostel was asleep. Then louder, braver. One day, a classmate overheard her and begged her to perform at the farewell party. She laughed it off—but the old fire flickered.

On stage, mic in hand, under blinking fairy lights, she sang her heart out. The crowd cheered. For the first time in years, she felt whole.

That moment became her turning point.

After graduation, Aanya didn’t take the corporate job everyone expected her to. Instead, she moved to the city with savings, guts, and her music. She worked part-time at a bookstore and sang at cafés in the evenings. Every performance chipped away at the fear, the doubt.

She wrote her own songs—raw, honest, and healing.

One went viral.

Then another.

People began to listen. Really listen.

A year later, Aanya released her first EP titled *“Back to Me.”* It wasn’t about fame. It was about coming home to herself.

Now, standing in the rain with the city humming around her, Aanya smiled. She wasn’t just surviving—she was singing, soaring, *living*.

She had found herself again.

And this time, she wouldn’t let go.