Who?

Music of the Moment: Quickly by John Legend (Feat. Brandy) and Paramore "I Caught Myself"

A Life without passion is not living, it's merely existing."

I've been thinking a lot lately about love and life. My life used to be completely about the music. I lived and breathed every moment of it and everything had it's own tune. Every jam had it's own feel, it's own story and personality. Each note on the page kept me hanging waiting for the next, waiting for that pivital moment when the next would sweep me away from reality and gently lay me down in the slur of the melody. I still feel that way when I'm in the moment with the music, but it doesn't happen as often. Perhaps I'm more selective than I used to be about my music, but I've come to be very elitist about what I listen to on a normal basis.

As with anything else, the loves of my life have changed from person to person, from brand to brand, from song to song. Even though my influence comes from different places based on different times, I can't keep but thinking that sometimes things don't go as we planned. I keep thinking that somewhere around the corner is my own musical ability coming back to me. Years ago, I left the music that I loved. The music I created. Whether that be vocals or violin, I always thought that was my life. And I defined myself that way. After singing in countless choirs and playing in countless orchestra settings, I could think of nothing else but becoming a musician. I would do nothing else but live and breathe the music that I loved, and for a long time that's exactly what I did. Until I got so discouraged and my hands caused me such pain that I was lost. I was devastated and felt like everything I knew was gone. I struggled with what to do and how to proceed. I tried to truck on through everything, anything, as long as it kept me from thinking that my dream was gone.

And maybe that's what it was. Always a dream that was unattainable? I can't help but imagine that my life has changed so much from what I always thought it would be. I wanted to be be signed to a record label. I wanted to have a recording contract and sing in front of hundreds of thousands of people. I wanted to play violin and help others learn to play along the way. I went from thinking about signing album covers, to wanting to teach others how to play, to wanting the music to heal people. And I still think about those things sometimes. I still think music therapy is the best way to go because in so many ways, music has been a therapy for me...except in the one way it could be-healing my broken dream. Music has taken me so many places and it has healed so many other broken things for me, but this one thing, it has failed me.

Passion has sparked in other areas for me, but I always seem to come back to the idea that it's not what I had always wanted in life. Perhaps I'm not sure what I did want in life to beign with, and that all of those dreams of being a musician, were childhood dreams that I tried to hold onto for too long, but without the music I once lived, I sometimes feel like I'm 'merely existing' as the quote goes, instead of living a life of passion. And perhaps I want what Miranda Hobbes calls "passion on top of passion."

I have a passion for education, for fashion, for literature, for love that moves you to your core, for living a healthy lifestyle, for leaving my mark on the world. But, what I can't figure out is how exactly I'm doing that. I love fashion and most times feel like I should work in the industry, but I also long for furthering my education with additional schooling. I also long for a healthier version of myself. (Read: smaller version of myself.) But, every so often, even though I have a new path, I mourn the loss of my old path and it becomes very difficult to think of anything else. Sometimes I feel a lot like the girl in "Grey Street." And it takes me a few days to realize how to fill that emptiness, unknown to me what seems to fill it. And it does in fact, break my heart, just likes hers.

When I think about who I am, it seems changed over time, and because I keep questioning myself at the moment, I can't pinpoint who exactly I am. I'm the girl that's overly emotional, that gets caught up in a moment and stays there, I get stuck and right now, I'm stuck at the road block of life. And, like the girl in Paramore's song, I don't know what I want. What I do know I want, is a love that strikes my core. A love that gets me caught up in the moment. A love that makes me think of nothing else. A love that gives me all the tingles, over and over and over again. A love that takes me down with it. A love that I can swim in without drowning. Maybe, though, the love that I'm describing is the one that drowns you and takes you under. A love that's pushing and pulling me down.

And where does this all leave me? With more questions. Ultimately, Paramore is right.
I don't know what I want.