I was nine or ten when I first fell head over heels in love with this song.
I had my own TV by then. Not a fancy one. Just mine. It sat in my room and felt like a small miracle. I could close the door, sit on my bed, and watch music videos like they were meant just for me.
I remember watching Brandy and thinking she was the coolest person I had ever seen.
She was calm. Confident. Soft without being quiet. Stylish in a way that didn’t feel loud or forced. Her voice felt smooth and steady, like it knew where it was going.
At that age I pretty much thought she was the definition of cool.
Sittin’ up in my room has lived somewhere in the corner of my mind ever since. Possibly my first intentional cassette purchase. A single. I can still remember how it felt in my hand. Light. Plastic. Something small that felt important.
I would sit on my bed and let it play. Not doing anything special. Just being there. Dancing a little. Listening. Feeling like the room itself understood me.
It was a song about being alone in the best way and it felt so monumental and to me at the time.
I heard it again recently for the first time in what felt like forever (too long clearly) in the most unexpected place. A breakfast spot. Sticky tables. Kids talking over each other. Plates clinking. And suddenly, there it was.
That same song.
That same feeling.
A center point for joy.
For a second, I was back in my room. Door closed. TV on. Cassette ready. A girl sitting on her bed, feeling perfectly content in her own little world.
There’s something comforting about realizing that a version of you still exists exactly where you left her. Sitting on the bed. Door closed. Music on. Safe inside her own rhythm. Not asking for anything. Not trying to be anything more than she already was.
That girl didn’t disappear. She just grew up and learned how to carry more.
And every once in a while, when a song like this finds its way back to me, I remember how good it felt to simply sit up in my room and let joy be simple.
That’s one of the things I love so much about music. It can sneak into the most ordinary morning and suddenly everything lines up. A booth at
IHOP. Kids across the table. A song I hadn’t heard in years playing overhead. And just like that, I’m singing it out loud, laughing, moving a little in my seat, letting my kids see me love something. That nine-year-old girl in her bedroom meets the woman I am now, and instead of feeling far away, it feels layered. Old joy, new joy, stacked right on top of each other. A brand new memory built on an old one. Proof that the good stuff doesn’t disappear,it just keeps finding new ways to show up.
