In the rooms of my memory house, as I imagine it, there are certainly a few that have been blocked off even though I still for sure hear sounds coming from them on the regular. You know that line, “The call is coming from inside the house”? Well, yeah, that’s exactly right. Where else would it be coming from? And sure, I could frame that as a kind of horror moment—as the origin story of that phrase suggests—but for the purposes of this, that thought is more provoking than terrifying. Sometimes I’m ready to enter a particular room, sometimes not. Sometimes I’ve even forgotten the room exists. I often do go flop around in the mental space that holds my teenagehood, where there are loads of music magazines all over the floor and an old-school turntable with vinyl stacked one upon the other. Also, the spot where the writing/music dream began.

Wandering not too far down the hallway is a game room with a closet in the corner that’s been tightly shut for a good while. That place (closet and all) is New York City music biz banana-pants madness. When I stepped into this fun house fantasia back in the day, I’d packed a lot of expectations into the valise I was pulling along behind. Stuffed into one compartment was the thought that I could change things in this testosterone world I’d read so much about. What those particular change-agent things were remained vague, kind of draped Stevie Nicks–style over&around myself. A to-be-revealed situation I figured would unfurl as I did the important work of wedging myself into the music-journo pantheon. A place I really really so very much wanted to be because, and I was beyond convinced of this, it held all the magic. Yet what was also tucked into that life valise was a somewhat solid sense that I wasn’t really going to be able to change the game. I knew how things were played and had a slippery idea of what I’d need to do to be a contender.

I did a good job in that contending situation. And anytime something came up where I felt dismissed or uncomfortable, I’d just take that moment and stuff it into the handy emotional game room closet. When the space became too small, dark, weird, I stepped out so fast I didn’t even grab much to take with me. I shut the door and walked down the stairs and clear to the other side of the house determined to put it all behind me. Maybe I wouldn’t even go up to that level of the house anymore, I thought. Perhaps I’ll have that floor removed altogether. For a long time, I did wall off the stairway. Ignored whatever sounds I heard from up there. I got married. Put a great distance between myself and anyone I’d known in the music biz. Made my money teaching writing workshops in the public schools. I purposefully lost touch. It seemed the sanest thing to do at the time. Mostly because I’d lost sight of—perhaps never even knew where—my inner toolbox was located so that any self-repair on my leeky inner bits would just have to go untended.

Occasionally a piece of the ceiling would crumble and bonk me on the head with a memory. Not fatal but startling. My rememberings from the pure magic-making brushes with musicians and being-there experiences were thrilling so I wasn’t sad about that. Lately, though, I’ve become more curious about exploring shut-off rooms, dark corners, and even scraping the gunk off skylights that could reveal some strong rays. I’ve found a toolbox of sorts that’s inspired me to give that game room a crack at exploration. The first threshold to cross has been this big pile of self-directed disappointment sitting right outside the door.

In all the intervening years since distancing myself, I carried a sense of failure that my fleeing was because I couldn’t handle it. I’d known the rules going in. Had read every piece of music mayhem moments with glee when I’d been a young’un. In large part, that’s what drew me there. So in exiting the space, what filled up my memory cracks were thoughts of what-if? What if, instead of leaving, I’d been courageous enough to stay and fight. Put my head down (or up?) and do what needed to be done to be heard, and taken seriously. Raised my voice. All that.

Now, though, with an emotional level in hand, I see how I’ve hung the memory a bit askew. The image inside is focused closely on my deficiencies rather than sharing the frame with how others, the ones right over my shoulder, shared weight in the situation. To acknowledge how my skin, the stuff protecting my sense of self, was growing thin and that leaving what felt like a riot of wrongness was the right (perhaps only) choice comes into a sharpness. Background becomes foreground.

So running the coulda-shoulda reel in my head is helpful only inasmuch as it can give me another view if I’m willing to look. When I sit with it, kick back in some Naugahyde lazy-boy (with drink holders), and have a stare, I can see someone who came in with certain expectations. A good many were met on both the up and down side. I wouldn’t change the trajectory of who I met and where I got to go one iota. I would shift the view to reflect more self-worth. And yet, naturally, hindsight is … and all that. The call is coming from the house and I’m going upstairs to investigate.