At many points of my life, I have been through periods of hurt. In most of those cases I have turned to music. Music has been a very healing outlet to me throughout my life. Whether it be when I was three or now that I am twenty when I feel myself on mental collapse I turn to music. 

I grew up in a very musical family, my mom has a degree in vocal performance, my grandfather always sang in the choir at church, and both my siblings were in band and played the saxophone. My mom says I came out singing, and obviously while that may not be true, as far back as my memory goes, singing was a part of it. I started voice lessons at age six and absolutely never looked back. 

Middle school sucked for me, just like everybody else. In this struggle of my life, I turned away from singing and went into the band. I started playing the flute, and honestly I really didn’t like it at first. It was something I had to grow to love. Even though I stayed in the band all of my years in middle and high school, I went back to singing, but through a different outlet. I joined the musical theater group. 

I was terrified that I was going to do awful, this was a completely different type of singing that I had ever done before. So, my mom found me a different voice teacher and I was back to training to do what I loved, with a twist. I did musicals in school for years before I had a big role. My junior year of high school we did Frozen, and I got casted as Elsa, so cool I know. 

I started in voice training “Let it Go” like crazy. I can confidently say now, I have absolutely grown to hate that song. Not only did I train that song like crazy, I had to actually gain confidence in performing. I had gone my whole life only singing in voice recitals in front of family and friends, and being background characters who popped in for some ad libs on a big song. I wasn’t a lead singer, I was a person who loved music from behind the scenes. This showed me a different side of music, and to me it was just as healing.

 During our performances of Frozen, I was going through a bad break up. One that made me question my love for everything, and as silly as it sounds, Frozen made me love music again. A silly statement that I never thought would leave my mouth. After these performances, COVID-19 hit and our school shut down. A dark time for us all, but in my personal experience, I lost my love for the thing that healed me the most. I did nothing during this time but talked to my mom and tried to make new coffee recipes every night. So, when school opened back up, so did my musical theater class. 

I finished high school and went to a new environment of the choir at NorthWest Community College. My hard work had paid off though, because me doing this choir paid for my first two years of college, and through this I met some important people. 

Now though, I have given up performing. As sad as this decision made me, I am confident it is the right one. Simply put, I could not see music being my career. Even then, I still am so grateful for how much music has helped me, and for how much closer it has brought me to people in my life, especially my mom. I find more comfort in listening to music now, and finding healing factors in the music other people make rather than the music I perform. Maybe one day I will go back, but the love music has brought me for myself is something that I cannot explain in any other words other than these: near and dear to my heart.