A Christmas Miracle

I think I have finally found peace.

I wrote this a while ago, and I found it today. I read it, changed it a little and now I feel like I can post it with my entire being behind it. I honestly and truly believe in what I have written.

I have found peace, after struggling and searching and praying for so long.

and that is my Christmas Miracle.

I wish I could learn to love myself the way that people think I do. Every time I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere, finally understanding myself, something happens that puts me back three or four steps and I’m nowhere. Progress always involves backtracking, but I’ve backtracked so much that I feel like I’m permanently going backwards.

I feel useless a lot of the time, but no one will ever know that. They all think that I am strong, compassionate, talented, a master of musical emotions. I have been through a lot and I try to love unconditionally. I can play some instruments and I understand chord progressions, but someone is always going to be better then I am. They see my hours of practicing and my blistered fingers and my arms splattered with ink from composing and they think: she is so amazing, so gifted, so talented. She has a gift. But the truth is; I’m just hardworking. I put my head down and I just move along. I don’t feel like I have my own rhythm. I spend hours creating them, but it turns out that they always belong to someone else.

My friends are so solid in their selves. I look at them and I wonder how they do it, and if they ever felt as undefined as I do now. Even my youngest friend, who is still growing and molding into her future self, seems to know exactly what kind of person she is going to be. And I wonder if I knew what kind of person I was going to be when I was her age, and that maybe it is just harder to be grown up then it is to grow up.

They look at me and think that music is my calling in life; that it was chosen for me before I born. They can’t see me without my music. Without the black notes clinging to my name like a caboose to the train, I am irrelevant. And maybe it is that fear that makes cling to music. Being irrelevant scares me more then being a shell.

But, I think I cling to music because it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. They say that math is the universal language. But I think they got it wrong…whoever “they” is. Music speaks the same notes, the same sounds, the same emotions, no matter where you are or whatever language you speak. And you don’t need to go to school to understand what music is saying to you.

Math has never been one of my strong points.

I wasn’t expecting to meet him that night. I just tagged along with my friends. The only thing I really take notice of is how Kendra is wearing skinny jeans in an eggplant shade and how Erin’s scarf encompassed every shade of brown and green and was draped perfectly around her neck. And I wondered when I would be able to wear clothes that scream out who I am. But until then, I am still a blank canvas, like the white v-neck shirt draped over my body.

He’s like a breath of fresh air and I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t getting enough oxygen until I’m around him. His eyes are pools of mossy copper and his hair is always messy and when he laughs, it sounds almost like the summer breeze: childish and carefree. He likes plastic swords and nerf guns and he wears an orange beanie around as if he was about to go hunting any second. He reads older authors and believes in epic adventures, traveling and star gazing. I think he is the most genuine person I have ever met.

He asks me questions that I’ve never been asked before and I have to think a long time before I can answer them. Sometimes, he will tell me stories about when he was little and even though he doesn’t give me a moral, I always learn something from them anyways. Sometimes we don’t talk at all. We just sit on the steps outside his apartment and watch the world pass by and when it gets too cold or too dark, we get up and go inside and when I go home, I feel like I just had the best conversation in the world.

At the end of the year, I go home to New England and he goes back to California. I shed a few tears when I hug him goodbye, and he tells me that I’m the best friend he’s ever had and that I better call him soon. I tell him that I love him, because I do. And then I walk out of the door and drive away and I don’t understand why my eyes are getting wet, because he is just BP and we are the best of friends and that won’t go away because we’re going to be apart for a while.

My days are long and I feel like I am always on the go and that there is never any down time. The smallest things remind me of him and at the end of every day, I call him and tell him about the things I have seen or the people I have met or the music that I have made. And he asks me questions and takes an interest in what I have to say and tells me to keep going when I feel too tired. And I feel like I am finally waking up to the world when I hang up the phone to go to sleep.

My days become measured by the last time we talked and the next time that I will hear his voice. I try to take in every detail of what happens in between the hours of our phone calls so that I can answer his questions. He wants me to share my world with him and I find that I do have a world and that I want to share it with him. His laugh is almost like the summer breeze: childish and carefree, and I am in love with him and I didn’t even realize that I was.

He is going across the continent and I won’t see him for a couple of years. Things have been hard and he’s been distant and he only asks questions and doesn’t answer mine. I hear he’s been spending a lot of time with a previous love and I’m not jealous. I just hurt. I knew that he could only love me for so long before something got in the way, but I didn’t expect him to stop being my friend.

I guess people change though, and I go back to my music because music stays the same and I understand it. And it rains outside and I think that weather really isn’t a language but it still speaks volumes. And I wear my white v-neck t-shirt, but I don’t feel blank anymore. I pour my emotions into the piano and words flow from my blood through my fingertips onto paper, and I realize that I am my own person, because these are my feelings and no one else’s. He isn’t around to hear about my day or ask me questions that make me think and I fall asleep without his voice now every night. He’s with someone else and he isn’t mine and I realize that maybe he was never mine in the first place. And I love him and I know he still loves me in some way, but I think that some kinds of love are meant to be unspoken. Sometimes I think about the days when we would sit on the steps and I never felt so alive or myself or defined and I get sad because I miss talking to him, but for some reason, it makes sense to me.

I’m so busy and I am always on the go and there is just so much to do. I am almost always okay with his silence now, and my days are getting easier and although there is this void where he was, I can still function and my music is still being written. I’m still wearing my white t-shirts and I look at the stars once in a while and I wear an orange hat because it makes me happy. And my friend saw me wearing it and smiled and told me that only I would be able to pull them off.

I’m making new friends and I am finally starting to trust new people again. I’ve set goals and I’m actually achieving them. I’m being honest with myself and I’m asking myself my own questions now and I’m becoming inspired and I am beginning to understand myself and I think I might actually love who I am.

I am my own symphony.

Merry Christmas Everyone.