I want to play music so badly that it makes my stomach do a little turn-y bubbly thing whenever I think about it. Sometimes it makes me sick.

I have fought against being a musician since I started playing the saxophone 13 years ago. I only just recently came around to it in the last couple years. I tried and tried to put it down, leave it behind, do something more economically productive, something that would more likely ensure financial success, something that would put me on an easy path of approval through tangible accomplishments.

I remember growing up how much I fought. I remember one day in particular when I was really upset about a lesson I was supposed to have, and how freaked out I was that I didn't think I was prepared for it, and how hard the music was, how much I sucked, blah blah blah. I worked myself up into a pretty good mess about that one, and told my mom I didn't want to do it anymore, I couldn't handle it, and that music wasn't for me, that I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. She sat me down and we had this conversation:

Mom: "Rachel, how many times have you cried over grades?"
Me: "Um, maybe once."
Mom: "Rachel, how many times have you cried about theater stuff?"
Me: "Never."
Mom: "How many times have you cried about your friends?"
Me: "Don't know. Never."
Mom: "How many times have you cried about boys?"
Me: "Never! No point!"
Mom: "How many times have you cried about your saxophone?"
Me: "Every freaking day. *Sniff**hiccup**"
Mom: "I think you are going to be a musician."


And that's when I told myself to stop fighting it. But I still did, just not with as much conscious effort. But everything up until now has been child's play. My world growing up, and the academic world into which I replanted after graduating high school were cradles, where nothing could really test my relationship with music. But now, scrapping my way through a world where people don't have jobs, homes, or money, let alone the time to think about where musicians fall into line, the fight has suddenly become a lot more important to me. And where I was once fighting against it, I now find myself fighting for it harder than I've ever fought for anything.

I think of music as a very real entity in my life. I consider myself to be married to it, completely committed even on the days when I wake up and think, "I WANT OUT!!". My saxophones are not instruments, they are the only children I ever want to have. I mourn for their injuries and want nothing more than to give them wonderful and exciting lives. I feel a personal responsibility to be the greatest musician I possibly can be, if only to avoid disappointing the entity which is my greatest love.


Yes, there's some cheese there. But eat it. Because it is honestly made.

Now stop wasting time and go give somebody a hug.