In the corner of my parents’ living room sits a brown leather Lay-Z-Boy. My dad’s chair. You always knew when he was in it. The leather would sigh, the footrest would clunk, and tucked under the cushion were brochures for Dodge minivans. He never told us not to sit in it, we just didn’t. It was his spot. After he passed, the chair sat empty. Not as a rule, just out of respect. Eventually someone sat in it again, and it didn’t feel wrong. It felt like life quietly making room for someone new. Almost everyone I talked to had their version of that chair. A squeaky recliner. A couch corner no one else dared claim. These chairs aren’t just furniture, they’re memory holders. Anchors for routines, relationships, and sometimes grief. At our house now, we’ve got two gray stools at the kitchen counter. We pictured morning coffees, quiet chats, fresh baking under one of those diner-style glass domes. But they mostly sit empty. The counter’s a drop zone for mail and chargers. We gather in the other room instead. Those chairs? They’re not failures. They’re reminders of the things we meant to make time for. Some chairs we sit […]

For his 50th birthday, my brother-in-law made something quietly brilliant. A playlist with one song for every year he’s been alive. But it wasn’t just a greatest hits list. He arranged it like a story. A life set to music. He and a few friends swapped their own “50 songs for 50 years” playlists, and I still find myself queuing his up on long drives or lazy Saturday mornings. It’s more than music. It’s a glimpse into who he is. That idea, the soundtrack of a life, got me thinking about mine. Not just the songs I liked, but the ones that helped shape me. That connected me to people and moments I still carry. So in this first episode of *Turning 50*, I go back to where it started. For me, that’s 1989. My sister’s Sinead O’Connor cassette. Conversations on a cottage beach about album tracks that never made it to the radio. Then came high school band rooms turned into impromptu Nirvana jam sessions, friendships rekindled by obscure band shirts, and cassette swaps at youth camps. And of course, the festivals. The sweat, the sun, the windows down drives, and the arguments about which band stole the show. […]