How I Found My Way Back

I have fibromyalgia.

There — I’ve said it.

I don’t bring it up often, but today feels like the right moment.

It began quietly, as these things tend to do.

A dull ache in my left arm while playing the harp.

No obvious cause. No clear explanation.

Just pain, showing up uninvited and refusing to leave.

Over time, the stiffness in my fingers grew harder to ignore.

Then one day — or perhaps gradually, and I simply hadn’t wanted to notice — I could no longer play the piano.

Or the harp.

The instruments I had built my life around fell silent.

There were days I couldn’t get out of bed.

More of those days than I care to count.

Eventually, I left my job.

And yet.

The longing for music didn’t go anywhere.

Stubborn thing.

So I did what one does at some unreasonable hour of the night: I searched the internet.

Instruments for people with limited hand mobility.

Page after page, until —

tongue drum.

I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But it turned out to be, in the quietest and most unexpected way, exactly what I needed.

My symptoms improved. I returned to work.

I can’t play the piano or harp the way I once did, and I’ve slowly made peace with that.

But finding the tongue drum was a turning point —

not just musically, but in every sense.

It gave me back something I thought I’d lost for good.

Music is still here.

Tongue drum is here.

And honestly? Both are a joy.

Why not come and find out for yourself.

Tongue drum, harp and piano