The Ways of Loving (A Short Lindsey Stirling Story)

The Ways of Loving

"OH MY GOSH I LOVE THIS SONG!" Lindsey Stirling's song Ascendance roars throughout the stage, my heart pumping and the adrenaline coursing rapidly inside of me. I begin to dance like no one's watching in the front row, my lungs begging for water from all my screaming.

"Hazel, calm down! You're the loudest one here!" My friend warns me. She herself is also dancing, but I am putting on a performance.

"YOU CAN NEVER TELL A STIRLINGITE TO CALM DOWN. THIS IS MAH JAM!" I continue to dance, my friend watching me, thinking I'm crazy, but she slowly joins me. The sound of Lindsey's violin makes butterflies soar in my stomach; I feel like I'm on top of the world.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a wave of insecurity hits me, like a bus crashing into a building. I immediately stop dancing and look down. My hair's a mess, I'm sweating, and I'm causing a scene.

Why can't I be like everyone else? Why do I always have to start a scene? Why am I me? My friend puts a hand on my shoulder- she can tell I'm upset. I give her a weak smile and brush her hand off.

"Listen Hazel, you're at a Lindsey Stirling concert, just worry about this later." I can't though. This always happens to me. I'm just so different.

Instead of beginning to dance again, I force a fake smile. I do this a lot so people don't have to worry about me, because I'm not worth worrying about.

I focus my gaze back on Lindsey. She's so beautiful: perfect hair, perfect figure, perfect personality, perfect smile... and then there's me, Hazel, you're not-so-perfect (below average) teenager. While dazing off into Lindsey's eyes, I could've sworn she glanced my way. Nah, she didn't. But maybe she did. Lindsey flashes me a reassuring smile and continues to look at me every so often. Maybe Lindsey can tell how I'm feeling, maybe she knows.

After Ascendance ends, Lindsey holds her stomach, breathing heavily. The crowd is booming with excitement.

"AHHHHHHHH LINDSEY!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Lindsey gives a little bow, accepting the applause. As I wait for Lindsey to continue onto the next song, the lights dim a little more and the spotlight shines on her. Everyone goes quiet, we all can tell that Lindsey is about to start talking about something important.

"Thank you, thank you, really, I love you guys. You know um, I get a lot of letters and I get a lot of emails from people, either from Meet and Greets or through my website and um, a lot of times people say- they mention how, you know, how 'it's really cool that you have so much confidence in yourself' or you know, 'you're so lucky that you love yourself for who you are' and I guess the thing I want to talk about is um that I wasn't always like that. Just a couple years ago actually, um, I was a very different person than I am today and I was struggling with depression and quite a variety of other things and I became so closed off from people- I was so scared and I lost sight all of my passions and everything that gave me joy in life because I was so afraid and that I realized that... I wanted to change. I didn't want to be pessimistic anymore. I didn't want to look in the mirror and hate everything that I saw looking back at me and so I worked really really hard. Everything from going to therapy, to doing mental exercises of positive thinking, to basically the same way I learned to play the violin and did exercises and scales and arpeggios, and the same way I learned to dance; I practiced learning to be positive and learning to love myself again. The reason I share this with you is because that I honestly, truly believe that anybody can be healed from whatever it is that we have and I really believe that we can become the kind of people we want to be. Whether it's chasing a dream or reaching a goal, or changing who you actually are and becoming something that you want to be. A lot of my music has this kind of theme written, you know, I write about these experiences from my life a lot and my music, and this song is an example of that, this song is about transcending."

As Lindsey started to play her song Transcendance, my jaw dropped to the ground, not only from the song she's performing, but from her inspiring message too. Including myself, Lindsey's audience erupted from their seats and hands went up in the air like crazy. I went to rub my eyes when I felt a wet substance, what is this? I rubbed one of my eyes and tears were left on my finger. This time for sure, Lindsey gave me a deep stare and smiled at me widely, I flashed her my hugest smile and her face turned into a look of pure joy. I looked down at myself again, only this time not feeling insecure, not feeling like a mess, not feeling like a disgrace, but feeling that I belonged in this world, that I have a purpose, and that I'm here for a reason. I am me and no one can change that. Everyone deserves to be happy in life and the first step in doing that is to love yourself for who you are, because everyone is different. If everyone was the same in this world, the world would have no personality. Being different is sometimes a good thing, being different is not something to be ashamed of.
-----------------------------------------
Here's a short story for you all! I made this story for English Class :) I hope I get a good grade! Tell me what you think!