“Let me inside you, into your room, I’ve heard it’s lined with the things you don’t show”.

Hearing Chrissie Hynde’s seductive voice break through the cocoon of my sleep felt like I was being enfolded into strong, loving arms.

The year was 1986 and The Pretenders’ hit song, Hymn to Her, was playing on Radio 5.

It would be many years before I understood the lyrics of a song that touched me so deeply.

The song signifies an age of innocence and possibility, and a foreknowledge that I was going to become someone different.

I didn’t realise at the time that I would eventually leave the city and my family behind.

As a young maiden, the veil had been lifted for me too early, and I knew some of the secrets of womanhood from my mother and sisters.

I made a firm decision that I would not become a mother or marry.

Both concepts seemed alien, and I knew instinctively that motherhood would redefine me irrevocably. For that reason, I resisted the role.

I finished school, each phase marked by music that immediately places me in a point in history.

These musical memories are often bittersweet, as they signify bridges we crossed and burned.

Depeche Mode tapped into my natural sense of rebellion, whereas Aha lifted me on an invisible electropop trampoline. The Pet Shop Boys were a daily staple.

As I completed my studies and left the city for the unknown world of work, my experiences changed the young maiden of 14.

I changed my mind about parenthood and became a mother. I knew nothing about the little creatures, only that my heart desired a little girl.

Suddenly, I felt that I had an extra heart, a part of me that would always worry, feel pride, be a protector, live for another human.

I let her inside my room, this little girl, and I spoke her name as she transformed me forever.

Unexpected psychological disclosures, losses of loved ones and betrayals left me feeling bruised and inclined to withdraw from society for good.

I had let so many loved ones inside and it was a physical affliction of the heart to feel the consequences of trusting too easily.

It would surely be easier to close off my heart and wrap it in barbed wire.

For a long time, my heart lay buried in my chest, and I was none on the divine feminine figures that Chrissie Hynde had summoned into my consciousness.

I likened myself to a broken doll in black and white. Until one day, I felt again.

Now, when I see giddy, coltish young girls, I cannot help feeling tenderness.

Their beauty and desirability give them power they are not always ready to handle.

As my reproductive inability takes me out of contention as a competitor, I don’t begrudge these young women the confidence of youth and beauty.

I was once also in my prime and felt invincible. I thought that all the secrets of womanhood had been disclosed to me.

But for many years, the mythological figure from Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga the Crone, had lived with me as a guide.

I thought of her as a wise old grandmother, and she was as real as the humans in my life.

With every transition into another phase of my life, I realised that the Crone had much wisdom to impart to me.

She reassured me that I wasn’t invisible simply because I had aged.

This was the time for me to step into my true power as a woman, a doula of stories, someone who would help others give birth to the stories living inside them.

Many years on, Chrissie Hynde’s insistent voice still implores me: “Let me inside you, into your room”.

Of course I do. This song is a life anthem that brings joy to my bones.