If these walls could sing, would they burst out into a fun pop song, a playful waltz, an empowering rock song or a gut-wrenching ballad? I know if I could, I'd merge them all together for one last song. But I can't. They no longer want me. 

I feel the doubt taking control of all my cells as I play a simple song on the keyboard. For the last time in this studio. Maybe for the last time forever. I was never good. I should have never thought I could make it. I closed my eyes, not allowing myself to tear up. I would not cry when they were here. 

I pack up the keyboard, just in case I might ever dare play it. 

Oh, but we had some times together. I wrote my first love song on it. And then the many breakup songs that came afterwards. 

I look around, trying to take in every single detail of the room that felt more like home than my own. The room I could be bold, vulnerable, annoying, petty, lovestruck... myself.

The guitar sat on the floor, waiting for me to let the tears flow and heal myself by playing it... but it wouldn't happen. I was not good. Had I actually been good, people would listen to my music. My label wouldn't have dropped me. 

I sigh and sit on the floor, packing the guitar. 

After I touched the drums that belonged to the studio one last time and meddle with the buttons in the monitoring room I whisper "Goodbye", I load the guitar and keyboard in my car and I drive away. 

if only these walls could sing.

For a couple of days, I couldn't get out of bed. I had no more money left, so I had to leave the forever fabulous Hollywood and fly back to my little country, forgotten amongst all the famous ones in Europe, and go back to my parents' house in the even smaller and more forgotten town. 

I realise that I can't cry and watch my life fly by without doing anything... but if I'm not good at music, then what am I good at?

N O T H I N G.

I had to face the music - I was always the try hard at school, I wasn't good at anything, I had no other talent - it was just music. But they made me learn the hard way that it wasn't even music.

And so more weeks flew by, and my sadness lingered still, like a ghost in an old mansion. 

But one midnight, I awoke and ran to my guitar. As though I would have died if I hadn't played it. And so the notes and words bled. I decided to record a song one more time. That I'd put my soul out there one more time. That I didn't care if I wasn't good. So I posted it. And it blew up. And I wrote more songs. And they did well, too. 

And I realised one lesson, I shall never forget - that I must never stop believing in myself. That I must always try. That if the world shuts a door in my face, I need to find a window. And this is not the last song I'll put out. I'll always put more songs out, until you hear my name on every chart.