The Songs We Play

There have been so many times in my life that I have really wondered who I truly was, what I was truly worth. The answers weren't easy to find, but they always taught me something about life. Let me share with you what I have learned through my paths of self-discovery.

Discovering myself was like learning to play an instrument. There were keys that had to be played just right, and at first I had to look at the notes before I played them;I thought that if I didn't get them just right I couldn't play at all. In looking back I pity those who had even less notes to follow than I did, because I was just like that instrument; if they didn't strike the cords just right, I didn't want to even let them try. It took me a long time to learn to play the whole song, and to just follow it wherever it went, to decide what was really important and what just didn't matter.

Setting my priorities, or, rather, trying to, taught me that I could also be like a door. I could be locked tight, intent on keeping others out and holding myself in, which I did much too often, or I could open up and invite people in. I needed to remember that when I lacked the strength to do just that, the only place to get the strength was to let someone else find the key and unlock the door, no matter how much it hurt.

It isn't always easy to open up. Sometimes that latch catches and I'm not strong enough to pull it open on my own. Or sometimes I forget to let the song flow, and instead I try to fight it, looking for each note instead of the whole song behind the notes. But then someone opens my eyes and I see that the answers have been right in front of me all along, in my friends, my family, and all those around me. Finding myself really meant discovering others and learning to let them in. Because, you see, alone I'm nobody; but together we are an orchestra.