College Essay
Yelling and screaming, worrying and longing, thinking all night long; things that an average little girl shouldn't be feeling at night, but that was my reality. Worry was the biggest feeling. Anger was another big one. These are the feelings you have with an alcoholic parent at home. Those were the only feelings I knew how to express. The feelings that are so fluent are always the easiest to express.
My birthday is three days from Christmas. I would always joke with my mom saying that we should just forget my birthday and celebrate my half birthday in July. A black Fender Squire Strat was the first guitar I ever received, on Christmas. Now being the energetic little girl that I was, I was nothing but excited to annoy my parents every second of the day with this amazing instrument! I'm sure they regretted buying it for me seconds after I received it. Although picking up that guitar was a big milestone in my musical life, it was not the start.
My school talent show when I was twelve years old was the first time I ever stepped in front of an audience. I was always so eager to share my talent to the world, but then when it came to actually performing, was deathly afraid. I remember that day so clearly, my first big performance, me putting myself out there, and my dad not attending.
It wasn't until I had performed in musical theatre a couple of times and done numerous band camps that I realized my true passion. I was sitting on my bed while my parents were arguing about God knows what that my mind was opened. "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri was my musical trigger. I listened to every word and wondered how someone could communicate so clearly what they were feeling in just 3:30 minutes. It changed how I looked at music. I picked up my guitar and started playing chords; G-D-Am-Em. This exploration was later named, "The Song Inside". The verse always stuck with me, “Something's coming closer to me and I can't tell, if it's glowing.” As cliche as the title sounds, that song really represented all of the bottled up emotions I had been feeling from all of my years on this earth. I had finally found my passion, and at 13. From then on I wanted to be doing nothing but music. Through all of the late nights worrying and working, to the night my mom finally decided to kick him out, to all of the times my dad neglected to come to my shows, I wrote about it. I poured all of those unconventional feelings into something so much more productive than just keeping it inside.
Five years and Fifty songs later, here I am. Now my songs have been performed in front of very large audiences, put on youtube, recorded etc. For the rest of my life I want nothing more but for people to learn from my music. I hope that they relate to and feel what I felt writing these songs, because I believe that music is feeling. A song's job is to make you think, to creep into your soul and pull out any feelings that were trapped down there and to bring them up for the world to hear. Music is supposed to make you feel, and that is what I want to bring to this world. I want to teach people to forgive because that is what I learned through my music. I don't want anyone to feel alone, or worried, or helpless. We spend way too many nights feeling that. I ask one thing and that is for you to listen to a song, really listen to it - because one song can change your life.