I always try to write in blogs, or journals but it never goes anywhere.
There are so many different things I want to say, and I get so caught up in trying to write pretty, or have my stories sound so profound. I'm deathly afraid of someone seeing these things I write months later and get the wrong impression of me. Even I look back on things I have written and think 'God I was stupid' or 'Why did I care so much about that?' and then I delete it or tear those pages out and try to erase my embarrassment.
I have recently gotten interested in storytelling. I have always been a storyteller, but until January 2011, I had no idea that storytelling could be some sort of art form, something I can do for fun, that has its own community associated with it. I always just thought I was meant to do music.
Music has always been the one thing that made the most sense to me. Though I sang in choirs from first grade to senior year of high school, and then again in college, it was never really something I did to express myself. I liked being apart of a community. Doing music with other people. There was safety in numbers. I thought about being the lead singer of a band when I was a freshman in high school and that's when I realized that while I have a lot to say, and write, I was not a songwriter, and I was most certainly not a singer.
I decided at that tender age of 14 (I think my most favorite year on the planet so far) that I was going to be apart of music from the other sides of the stage. I started supporting local (and sometimes really shitty) bands by going to shows, talking to the members, helping with merch, helping with promotion. I was that kid that was always there, always networking. I had no idea that I was practicing for my current life.
And when life hit me right in the face, I plugged my ears with my earbuds and headphones and started listening. Not to say that I didn't always have my headphones on before then. I most certainly did. But I realized then that lyrics can narrate a lot more than just a time in a songwriter's life. It could narrate my life in several It was background to a lot of uncomfortable times in my life, with the windows rolled up, and no conversation. But it was a quiet reminder...
This is what you love. This is what you have to do for the rest of your life. No turning back.
almost 9 years since that fateful day... I have a bachelor's degree in Liberal Studies and a minor in Music Industry Studies. I'm right where I said I would be.
The question is.... where am I going now?
