This is My Story

I began the journey of figuring out who I was in college. I first started thinking about who I was and what that ment when I found myself in a practice room with a saxophone in my hands, staring at a piece of sheet music that I could not bring my self to play.

A single thought kept going through my head: there is something wrong with me. Then I started to ask questions. Why couldn’t I get myself to practice? Why did I wait until 30 minutes before my lesson to even touch my instrument? Why didn’t I love this? What is my problem?

This was the moment that lead me to changing my major from music with a concentration in saxophone to computer information systmes. There were so many things I loved about my classes. A lot of the work was done in groups and it was for a purpose. There were deliverables and deadlines and instead of someone’s subjective oppinion of how well I played, it was about having things done and it working a certain way.

It was black and white. Binary. Like music, I was good at it and I picked it up quickly. Unlike music, I could see this being something I did as a career. I was on the right track!

5 years later I faced another moment like the one I had in the practice room at college. I was sitting in my car outside of the client and I was disapointed. Not disapointed in myself or in anyone but disapointed that the day dream I was having the entire 45 minutes of my commute hadn’t materialized. On an almost daily basis I spent my entire drive hoping for a car accident.

Yes, a car accident. Nothing serious… Just a decent fender bender that would delay me significantly. Nothing major… Just enough that it would make sense for me to go to the ER and get checked out. That’s when I realized how ridiculous my thinking was. I was HOPING to be in a car accident. Not because I hated myself but because I hated what I did 8-10 hours a day, 40-50 hours a week.

My goal is to make sure that no one else ever has to feel like I did in those moments. But if they do, to know that they aren’t broken.  They just need help finding their place.