The faith to try

These are the lamentations of an unsure music major:

Change is hard.

I feel overwhelmed by the upcoming semester. I feel like I don't know anything, that I'm not good at anything, and that's causing me to panic. It's not very fun.

We talked about talents today in Relief Society, and one of the ladies said something profound. She said, "Anything we do that we can develop is a talent." 

Anything we DO. NOT anything we DO WELL. I feel like I do not do most music major things WELL. But I DO them. And I can DEVELOP them. My whole life will be smothered under a terrible feeling of inadequacy if I continue to believe that I am a sub-par musician and a sub-par music major. I am not perfect. I should not expect to be. I may never be a prodigy. In fact, it's very likely that I will never become an earth-shatteringly good horn player, or pianist, or whatever. I simply don't have the desire to devote that much time and pain and effort to perfecting that craft.

BUT.

I have to believe that I can become competent in my chosen field. That I have a talent for music education--not because I do it well, but because I DO IT. I do it, and by golly I can develop it. Yes, I know very very little about it, and most of what I have learned I've forgotten over the summer. Yes, I will make a great many mistakes, and they will hurt and embarrass me and make me want to cry and sink into the ground. 

But mistakes are proof that you are trying. And if there is one thing I can be good at, it's trying. And if that is all I do this semester--if all I manage to do is try--that will be no small thing. That, in many ways, will be a great victory. Because I have a talent for music education. And I will try.

Terrified

You know those moments when you're on the brink of something new? Something huge and life changing? And you're caught between the old and the new, today and tomorrow, excitement and sheer bloody terror?

I'm right there.

I'm right there, and I'm terrified.

Humans are creatures of habit. We find our routine and we stick to it. It's comfortable. It's familiar. It's easy. My life is none of those things right now. And yet it's all of those things. It's midway between the familiar and the unknown, and the transition is definitely not comfortable.

I've done this a few times before. When I left for college. When I got my first boyfriend. When I blindly auditioned for a brass band that put me through the wringer and changed the course of my life. In all those times my world has shifted and rearranged itself and made me seriously consider what it was and who I was. I had to redefine myself and find room for both the old and the new--the things that made me who I was to that point, and the new things that were changing me, like it or not. And in all those times it was hard. It was hard to go from the high school girl living at home to the college girl who had to cook all her own meals and set her own schedule. It was hard to go to a new place and become a missionary and adjust to different rules. It was very hard to set aside twenty years of single-ness and re-conceptualize myself as a girl with a boyfriend.

But I managed it. In all cases I worked through it and cobbled together a new me that learned to survive and thrive and conquer that new sphere.

Now I find myself at a new transition. In mid-leap. The apex of that leap is arriving in eight short days. Then I have to rearrange the pieces of my life into a new pattern--one that works with another person's life. And although I was more than ready to quit the sphere of college apartment living, the habits and conditioning of five full years are proving hard to alter. It's been a long time since those last big changes. And none of them, honestly, were quite this big. Not this life-changing. Not this important. Not this profound.

It's a good thing I'll have my best friend along with me to conquer this world. To define it, and me, and us. Wish us luck as we begin our next great adventure.

Two Years

*Dedicated to my one and only*

Two Years

I look back in time

and I laugh

I laugh and giggle and shake my head

and roll my eyes

and laugh some more

did it really take

THAT long?

two years

two YEARS

months of denial

and waiting and wanting and crying and praying

and hoping and dreaming and overthinking and second-guessing

from a frisbee in October

to a bus in March

to a basement and a barbeque and a hot tub in May

to a duck pond in January

and again in February

and March

and then April

which led to a kiss on the couch

and a car in the rain

and a little tiny park

hidden on a hill

full of giggles and mosquitos and handy park benches and hard questions and patience

and then another park

(which I lost)

and another couch

(which was new)

and a few words

and a lot of tears

because my joy was too full

and leaked

and these in turn

(two years and a little past that frisbee game)

led to another couch

the best couch

on a perfect afternoon

and another question

which was not hard at all

and a night full of fireworks

and plans and dreams and joy

and a kiss

to bring in another year

two years?

let's make it three

or four

or a hundred

or forever

and count the Octobers

and the Marches

and the couches and the duck ponds and the parks and the buses

and all the other things to look back on

and laugh about later

like our first two years