My Own Window Seat

There's a particular kind of erosion that happens quietly — not in one sudden wound, but in a thousand small moments where you look at the ground and say okay. This song is about that erosion, and about the morning you realize you've been living inside someone else's map of the world. A plane ticket, bought by a father who wanted his daughter home, becomes the first object in years that has her name on it without his permission.

「My Own Window Seat」 lives in the tension between grief and a very fragile, very new kind of freedom. The grief is real: you don't spend four years with someone and simply walk away clean. You grieve the version of love you believed you had, even as you see clearly that it was never that. And then, beneath the grief — quieter, more frightening, more alive — is the altitude. The feeling that you are a person who exists outside of someone else's plans. That the sky was always yours. That you just forgot.

The story that moved us to write this came from a woman who almost didn't let herself ask the question. She wondered, out loud, whether her boyfriend was right — whether it was strange for an adult to want to fly across an ocean to see her father. She read what strangers wrote back to her. She cried. She felt what she called a deep drop in my heart. And then, in the same breath, she wrote seven words that cost her everything and gave her everything back: But I know I must leave.

[Verse 1] He said it's strange for a woman my age To fly across the water just to find my dad's face He shook his head, put his hands up, let out a sigh Said you don't get it, girl And I looked at the ground and said all right

He said the kids spread out and the parents stay home But my father lives an ocean away and I've been alone He made the rules of the world sound like common sense So I swallowed what I knew And kept my mouth closed and said okay then

[Pre-Chorus] But my daddy bought a ticket With his own two working hands He wrote my name in ink On the only thing I understand That I exist outside of this room Outside of all his plans

[Chorus] I want my own window seat Watch the clouds go underneath Feel the altitude I never knew I'd lost I want the hum of the engine to say You are a person today More than a name he taught himself to cross I want my own window seat

[Verse 2] He coerced me to quit my job, so I sit and I wait I learned to thank him for the meals and to never complain He said someday we'll start a family, be settled, be still But the life we were building Was only ever built to fit his will

He told my friend she should've come to him first Before she told me the truth — like I'm a secret, like I'm a curse And I kept on coming back because I thought love felt like this Like someone needing you so badly That he can't let you exist

[Pre-Chorus 2] But there's a gate with my name on it And a seat beside a wing And for the first time in four years I'm about to feel something

[Chorus] I want my own window seat Watch the clouds go underneath Feel the altitude I never knew I'd lost I want the hum of the engine to say You are a person today More than a name he taught himself to cross I want my own window seat

[Bridge] I read the words people wrote for me And something broke open in my chest They said you've been steered in the wrong direction, love You've been sleeping — it's time to rest And the tears wouldn't stop, but I knew for the first time What the word normal meant I felt a deep drop in my heart And I finally let it hit

Because the longer I stay here The less of me is left I'm in debt with nothing in my pocket And I've been holding my breath But I know — I know — I know I must leave I know I must leave

[Final Chorus] I've got my own window seat I watch the clouds go underneath Feel the altitude I finally know I lost And the hum of the engine says You are a person today No one's property, no one's weight to exhaust I've got my own window seat I've got my own window seat I've got my own window seat