Hope This Helps

1

As I lay in bed, I thought of everything I could have done in my life but never had the chance to do. I sometimes find myself wishing that I had had the chance to try everything and explore my possibilities. Like ice skating, I've always wanted to try ice skating. Maybe I would have been a figure skater if I had had the option. In the Winter Olympics it's my favorite sport to watch, the way they can express a story through their motions have always astounded me. The way they glide so gracefully, and how strong of a person you must be for this sport. When you are on the ice, in front of judges, it must be just you and the ice. When the music starts you have to put yourself in a bubble, block out the rest of the world, become the part you are playing. I've never been able to let myself do that, sure as a musician I immerse myself in the part I'm playing, but never before have I expressed myself. I've always expressed what the composer wrote, what they envisioned.

As a child I was told I couldn't do things because we didn't have money, or that it was too far away. I used to hate where we lived and how we lived, because I could never do what I wanted to try. As I got older I stopped wanting to do new things, forgot of my love of watching figure skating or horses run. I only focused on my school work and proving to people that as a female from my county, I could do and achieve anything I wanted to. I stopped being as creative as I once was, I dulled. I wasn't the same fun loving person as I used to be, I had become solely focused on school. Some might wonder why that was so bad, what's wrong with being focused on only school? I had stopped being myself, I was covering up everything that was ME.

Now as an adult I lay in my bed and regret never trying to do new things. I am trying them now, but I will never get the chance to see my full potential in any sport that I like. I'm far too old and my body wouldn't hold all the strain I'd put on it. Maybe I'd be able to learn enough to perform for a year, two at best. I am only 19, but when you enter a high demand sport you enter as a child. I am going to start skating, I have started taking English style riding up, I am exploring new languages that were previously not available to me, I am growing into myself more.

If there is one thing I want to get across in this series of my personal life is that it's never too late to pick up a sport or hobby that you have always wanted to do. I am so proud of how far I have come, I no longer hate my past, I no longer blame myself for not pushing to do what I wanted. My aunts, uncles, cousins and people I never knew always told me I would never succeed as a woman from my county. I was told that because I was female I would get nowhere, but I am in college, I am riding horses, I am stronger now than I have ever been.

If you are female, male, in the LGBTQ+ community know that you can do whatever you want. No matter what anybody says, because the only one that can stop you from doing those things is yourself. If I would have listened to all naysayers in my life, I wouldn't be the person I am today, I wouldn't be as driven as I am. Use the negativity as fuel instead of water on your fire. Love your body, your race, your color, your sexuality, your brain. I know it's hard, it's hard to let the comments roll off your back, I have been there(I'm still there). I have had depression, still do, I have social anxiety, and I strive everyday to look at myself in the mirror and realize how beautiful I am, how smart I am, how confidant I have become. Don't let people break you down, let them believe what they want. Make your own story, go off script every once in a while, do something spontaneous.

I know what I say is hard, no one ever said life was easy, but it's easier if you believe that you can do it. If you say I CAN do this. If you realize that the negative people are only that way because they didn't try, that they became content with their crappy lives, then all their comments make sense and they don't matter anymore. They don't want you to succeed because they couldn't. That has helped me through some very rough patches when I wanted nothing more than to give up. I wanted to let the weight of their words to drag me down, because it was easier than fighting for what I wanted. There were times in my music career to just put down my flute and never pick it up again, because the music was too hard. Then I would hear every negative comment people made about me, every one that said I could never succeed, and I would pick my flute back up and take the music measure by measure until I got it. Life will never get easier, the negative people will always be there, but our decision to listen to them is ours and ours alone. No one can make us fail, or make us give up, the only person who can do that is ourselves.

Stay strong in your decisions. Don't let the negative comments in. Love yourself and everything that is you. Don't hide anymore, fight to make yourself be seen, make them accept you. Prove everyone wrong, show them how great you really are, because everyone is a unique and amazing person. No one person is alone, no one should have to put up with people who have already decided you will fail. If you feel there is no one who believes in you, know this, I believe in every single person and believe they can all change the world. Never give up, if for no one else, then for yourself and your future children, for me.