Songs That Take Me Back

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of early 2000s music, and it’s funny how a single song can drag old memories right back to the surface. For me, What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction is one of those songs.

In high school, I threw a surprise birthday party for one of my best friends. A bunch of people came early to help me set up—including the guy I secretly had a crush on for most of those years. The party itself was a success, but the moment that has stuck with me all these years happened after, during cleanup.

It was just me, the birthday girl, and him. Music was still playing, and when What Makes You Beautiful came on, the entire vibe shifted. He started humming, I joined in, and before I knew it, we were dancing around the empty room, laughing like we didn’t have a care in the world. Our hands brushed, and the air between us was thick with unspoken what ifs.

At school we flirted constantly. Whenever our group of friends went out, he and I somehow always ended up side by side. And that night, sweeping up confetti and stacking chairs, it felt like we were right on the edge of something more.

Looking back now, I wonder: what if one of us had been just a little braver? What if we had admitted what was there instead of letting it slip into memory?

It’s wild how a song can carry you back to a moment like that—when the world felt wide open, and love was just a dance step away.

And now, in my 20s, I think about how often life still feels full of what ifs. Only the stakes are bigger—jobs, relationships, moving cities. But the lesson I keep circling back to is that sometimes you have to take the risk, say the thing, lean into the moment. Because as sweet as nostalgia can be, I don’t want my 20s to just be stories of what almost happened.