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The musical opens with this light plucking and twinkling that immediately brings me back to late-2000s Ingrid Michaelson with her ukulele and her vocal harmonies. (She wrote all of the music for this musical, and it’s so clearly her, at least to me. Every time a song plays and I hear her in the opening measures, a part of me waves excitedly to her.) The opening number is one of the songs I still listen to regularly, not just for the composition but for the lyrics too.

“Time, time, time, time…
It never was mine, mine, mine, mine…”
– excerpt from Time

I’d forgotten how long it had been since I last attended live theater. And taking in the first song I wonder how I could’ve forgotten, because I’m filled with this golden light and I can’t stop smiling. There’s just something about musical theater – the music, the storytelling, the performance, whatever it is, sometimes it all comes together and it’s magic.

The first time I watched The Notebook musical was the original run on Broadway in September 2024. I was ~1 year into my sabbatical, feeling lost, and then feeling rejuvenated after a trip to France where I mainly soaked in incredible Renaissance and Impressionist art. And then I happened to watch this musical at the exact right time I needed to. Mainly one song in particular.

At the climax of the musical (minor spoiler warning for this insanely popular 20-year-old movie?), the main character Allie is questioning her life up to that point, and where her life is headed. Who had been in control of her trajectory? Who had been making the decisions in her life? And how does she really, genuinely want to live?

“Sometimes I feel like I cry without a noise
Sometimes I feel like somebody chose my choice

I have to run away, I have to sit and stay
I wanna live a life where I’m allowed to say
That I’m proud of the way that I spent my days”
– excerpt from My Days

I remember watching Joy Woods, the performer, absolutely kill it on stage, nailing all of the emotion on top of the insane belts. And it felt like the universe was giving me a sign, like this was confirming that I was on the right path. That I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing, to be able to be proud of the way that I spend my days.

Fast forward to March 1, 2026. My Days plays out on stage, sung by Alysha Deslorieux. And she does a great job, hitting all of the belts and adding some of her own ornamentation too, just enough to add some spark while not detracting from the core of the song. But when I hear My Days this time, 2 years later, I don’t feel the same yearning. I feel settled. Sturdy. I relate to the lyrics differently now. I’ve been through what the character Allie is singing about, and I’ve made it to the other side.

Later in the song, Allie talks about this small voice inside her from when she was younger, and she recognizes now that the voice was her own all along. And the thing is, we all have our own little voice inside of us. And you can cultivate that voice. As you make more and more decisions from that place, decisions aligned with who you want to be, at some point it becomes loud and clear and you can no longer ignore it. Nor do you want to.

My sabbatical and career change have been this for me. I swear to you, it’s actually possible to feel “there’s no place I’d rather be” on a regular basis. To be very happy with the way I am spending my days.

Also it just so happens that the last musical I watched before today was actually The Notebook on Broadway. It’s funny how life works sometimes.