Listening to “My Little Love” always felt like speaking to that missing piece of yourself, apologizing for not being able to have a clear mind. For not being able to see. Being present but not genuine. In the song, Adele is speaking to her son about her most beautiful reflection of herself, which is him at an important point in both their journeys. 

She expresses the guilt she feels for being able to have come so far knowing he’s hurt, knowing her choices might have broken him or have an effect on him in the future. The song is a confession, as well an apology. 

Adele’s divorce wasn’t anything messy, just hard. Hard because she had to choose herself in a situation where another life was involved and a factor. “I just felt like I wanted to explain to him, through this record, when he’s in his twenties or thirties, who I am and why I voluntarily chose to dismantle his entire life in the pursuit of my own happiness,” she shared with Buzzfeed News.

As someone who doesn’t share the emotional bond of having or bringing a child into this world yet, the song still tugs at a chunk of my heart. Rather, I imagine a conversation with my younger self. Adele feels so guilty she just wants to hear him say he loves her, and remind him she’ll never replace or put anyone above him. 

“I wrote it for Angelo. I wrote it to shine light; that I didn’t always have it together,” she shared when she sat down with Tom Power for an interview about her Album “30”.

For Adele to admit “she’s trying her best” almost sounds foreign coming from the perspective of a parent but she tells him, nonetheless, she feels like she doesn’t know what she’s doing. In the same interview clipped by LifeSupport on YouTube Adele says, “A lot of parents hide things from their kids – as we should … I couldn’t hide from him, he could only see me clearer if I tried to hide.”

Towards the end of the song she seems to be crying as she expresses herself in a recording. “Today is the first day since I left him that I feel lonely,” she continues. “And I never feel lonely, I love being on my own – I always preferred being on my own than with people.” I always have to replay that part twice because it’s such a vulnerable confession that I relate to. 

Growing up I loved working by myself and being alone, but the older I got the more I yearned for people that were there for me, and even then I felt out of place almost or in discomfort from the setting after a while. It’s a beautiful song about journey, motherhood, a letter to a single-parent and their child and most importantly separation and the rawness of it all.