Last week I was feeling pretty crappy. I just woke up, looked into a virtual mirror, and I didn't like who I was. That dislike turned into a low hatred. I didn't really know who I was. All week long I was snappy with my friends, skipping chores and homework, and wishing that when I went to sleep, I'd never wake up. The fact that two of my jeans now had holes in the butt, having early band practice every morning, and my grandpa having a heart attack didn't help. At all. Actually, you know, it had quite a negative impact on me.

But I knew, because I (sometimes) know myself, that there was something behind all this. Something was driving me to feel crappy, useless, and totally insecure. It wasn't depression, because I knew depression and it had a completely different look to it. It kinda sneaks up on ya gradually. This was instantaneously. I knew that I should be happy (for several reasons), but I just didn’t. I'm a Christian, I believe in God and I'm baptized. I'm supported by beautiful friends who love me. My family doesn't always support me, but tolerates me when I go out on a limb, which is all I need. I have great talent, and I live in a good neighborhood. And I wasn’t depressed.

I need something, something just for me. I gave myself away to so many people, so many activities that I half-enjoyed, that I wanted to be selfish. I wanted to be deeply engrossed in this selfishness. And I didn't want to do it because someone told me to. But, alas, there was nothing.

But then....after all those early morning band practices, on Saturday I groggily dragged myself out of bed and went to the school at six. In the morning. Fun, right? But I knew what to expect, because I had made District Band last year. I was pushed onto a bus, slumped in a seat, and sped off towards a small town, far far away.

That morning I watched the sun rise. I usually see it come up, but rising is a whole different matter. I saw the deep blue elegantly give way to a purple that would've given any mildly happy person starry eyes. I watched the moon slip into shadows, which the sun pompously entered with its usual cloak of colors and bird singing. That was one of the most coolest moments of my life.

At District, the director worked us to the ground, and then some more. I say we were pretty dang close to the core of the Earth when he let us take a lunch break. I play alto saxophone, and it's pretty cool. I ate lunch, then came back. But it was after lunch that it happened.

Music came to court me. Oh, we've flirted many times, but that's all It was: flirting. A look here, a sly touch there, all fiddle faddle, all in good fun. But that day, Music held out his arm, and instead of being just a transparency, he was a whirl of color and sound and...adrenaline, I guess you'd call it, but a controlled, yet still wild, adrenaline. And It was love. Love for the music, for the making, and for the hearing.

Music came a-courting me, and I feel in love, the deep stuff that you can't get out of without crying for at least two weeks straight.

At that concert that night, I was as selfish as I could be. I put my whole into that music, and it gave me so much more back. It gave me me. It gave me a part of me that could say (when down) "Oh yeah, you bloody sucker? Ya can't be ME, because I was made FOR me, BY me, and WITH ME TOTALLY IN MIND! I don't have to share! So you go off and get yourself a new game, because this one won't work!"

Or something of that sort.

Today when I woke up, I was not someone new.....but I wasn't old, either. I was just me. And I plan to stay this way for a very long time.