There are moments in our lives when a little switch flips in our minds and we become something new, we redefine ourselves. I suppose you’d call these defining moments. But I’m not talking about the kind of defining moment where you make a choice that will determine the course of your future, but rather the moments where you define yourself by owning up to what you are.
I’ve known that I wanted to be a writer since I was about eleven years old, when I had my first experiences with creative writing in school. Since then, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do I’d tell them I wanted to be a writer. When I was about sixteen, I realized that I didn’t want to be a writer because I already was one. My spare time was filled with writing poetry, songs, attempting novels. I was already being what I wanted to become and so after that moment whenever anybody asked me what I wanted to be, I’d tell them, “I’m a writer. I want to be a published writer.”
Recently, I had a similar defining moment regarding music. The past ten months of playing in the band have mostly felt like I was just hanging on for dear life and then just sort of going along for the ride. But, last Friday night that changed. We were having a rehearsal and we decided to change the keys for a couple songs that we play and I was able to transcribe the songs in my head as I was playing them. I know that for some people transcription is easy and other people will have no idea what I’m talking about and that’s okay. But for me it was as though the patterns finally clicked and my entire being said, “Ah, I’m a musician now.”
I know that I’ve described myself as a musician on the blog, but last Friday was the first time I claimed that title internally, the first time that I defined myself to myself as a musician. It was as though a piece of my future fell into place right beside the piece that says writer and I felt this surge of inner strength – the kind of strength that stems from knowing deep down what I am.
Thank you for reading.
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