The Guitar Was Always There
- 2B903
- Jan 6
- 3 min read
My whole life, I’ve been obsessed with the guitar.
Before I knew how to play it. Before I understood music theory, technique, or discipline. Before I even knew that it could belong to me.
Recently, I learned that my great-grandfather played the guitar — that I come from a musical family. That discovery didn’t feel surprising. It felt confirming. Like something I had always known finally found language.
The guitar didn’t enter my life suddenly. It hovered.
When I was a kid, my family bought me toy electronic guitars. They could tell early on that this wasn’t a phase — that I wasn’t just playing around. Pretty quickly, they realized I needed the real thing. So they got me one.
It was a sunburst Fender Starcaster, from the last run they ever made.
That was the first time I seriously attempted to learn the guitar. And it mattered. But at that age, life didn’t give me the conditions to stay with it. I was bullied heavily as a kid. Confidence disappeared. Safety disappeared. And when you’re trying to survive, the things that require patience and vulnerability are often the first to go.
So the guitar left my hands — but not my life.
Years later, it returned quietly. My family and I were helping our cousins move, and the entire time, there was an old acoustic guitar sitting in the corner of their garage. I didn’t ask about it. I didn’t touch it. I just kept noticing it.
They noticed me noticing it.
They said they didn’t even know where the guitar came from — it had just always been there. And then they told me I could have it. That guitar is still with me today. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t glamorous. But it felt like something being passed forward, not bought.
There were other moments too. A guitar gifted by a friend that I smashed in a music video. Even now, that feels symbolic — like I was close enough to touch the instrument, but not yet ready to hold it with care.
The guitar kept appearing in my life as an idea, an object, a symbol — but never as a commitment.
Not until later.
Right before we embarked on the Soul Room studio mission, something shifted. One day, a simple realization landed: I was grown. If I wanted a guitar, I didn’t need permission. I didn’t need it to show up through someone else. I could walk into a store and choose one myself.
So I did.
That moment was bigger than it seemed. It wasn’t just about buying an instrument — it was about claiming responsibility. About choosing something that would require patience, humility, and consistency.
Since then, it’s been me and the guitar almost every day for over a year and a half.
Not for content.Not for performance. Not to prove anything.
Just showing up.
The guitar doesn’t reward shortcuts. It exposes them. It asks you to stay when your fingers hurt, when progress feels invisible, when frustration shows up louder than confidence. It forces you into your body. Into time. Into honesty.
And that’s why this time is different.
Earlier in my life, music was often about momentum — releases, stages, validation, movement. The guitar slowed everything down. It taught me how to listen with my hands. How to breathe through mistakes. How to sit inside repetition without needing applause.
Looking back now, I can see it clearly: the guitar was always there.
Waiting for me to grow into it. Waiting for me to choose it without needing escape or approval. Waiting for me to stay.
This time, I did.
-2B
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