Some objects are not meant to be left behind.

Humans love to surround themselves with things they like — books, puzzles, Legos. Some of those things are ultimately useless. They belong to the category of things you’d never use, but once a blue moon, you let it go and find yourself at a weird spot, like the whole world just doesn’t feel right without it.

Like Sheldon’s spot in The Big Bang Theory. The cushion somehow maintains the balance of his universe.

For an artist like Rosie (pseudonym), the one thing she can’t live without is a guitar, even though she hasn’t played in years.

“I gave up music more than five years ago, and yet, I’ve always carried a guitar,” she recalled. “And the one time I decided to travel without one, I ended up getting a new one at a local store.”

This is the same person who gave out her Gretsch guitar and all her recording supplies to Goodwill because she has become a writer, and music is just an echo of the past. But because she always had at least one guitar in her possession, she never felt the past calling.

It all changed when she parted ways with her last acoustic guitar at the border to leave space for the things she needed in life.

“In five years, for the first time, I listened to the songs I wrote as a teenager and tried to learn a folk song, just like I used to,” she said.

But Rosie refused to buy a new one.

She tried to resist it at first.

“In a time when money was tight, spending $400 on a basic guitar was unwise. Also, I don’t believe I’d use it once I have it.”

And the singing continued.

The past resurfaced and refused to die out. Rosie was haunted by the guitar ghost, and she didn’t have a way out of the mess. Her life as a writer who doesn’t listen to music no longer makes sense. She started listening to Yungblud and indie British rock bands just to scratch the itch. But it wouldn’t go away — she wanted to write music again, and she didn’t have the one thing she needed to write a song.

She needed her guitar to sing.

She was a vocalist, but the guitar channeled her voice.

She had never wanted to write a song so badly until then, and it was driving her crazy.

And she tried GarageBand and Logic Pro X. She even considered DIY a drum. And yet, what she truly ached for was a guitar.

And she realized, for the first time in a very long time, that the guitar was the one thing she could never leave behind, even though she wouldn’t use it in the foreseeable future. In this life, she didn’t get to be a musician. She didn’t even get the bandwidth to do it as a hobby. And she had to put that part of herself in a suitcase and leave it in the closet. But that guitar is the seal of her love and passion — the witness of the years she spent tirelessly honing the craft, not for the money, just because she wanted to.