Track 1 - Hi

Hi readers,

This is my first shot at this. I don’t exactly know what I am doing or what exactly my end goal is here, but maybe that’s the exciting thing about this. I just knew I needed a way to get all my thoughts down and track my progress with a project I wanted to do.

I thought of different ways I could do it. But I felt like I needed something more involved. Because the reason I am doing this project has come from many months of having conversations with myself. Important conversations that I have been avoiding for a long time, and ones that I didn’t even know I had to have with myself.

The year 2020 was one we will always remember. But what it did for me, I will always be thankful for. This year made me slow the heck down. I was on auto pilot for so so so long. I realized I wasn’t enjoying things that I used to. Chasing things I didn’t need to. Searching for things that were in front of me all along. I was doing it ALL WRONG. I was watching a tv show, well partially watching, because I was on my phone for the 130948209348th time in 5 minutes, but there was a line that made it through all the social media noise.

“People make life so complicated when it doesn’t need to be.”

I couldn’t believe how true that is. Why am I making life so hard for myself right now when it doesn’t need to be! I can’t exactly pin point the day I started to realize different things. But that brought me to the idea of writing it all down.

I could just write a journal for me, but one of the BIG realizations I’ve made is I love being creative. I love music. I love my family. And I am on the way to loving myself. So I am going to share this project with anyone who wants to listen. The idea has literally continued to form in my head as I’ve been writing this. There’s an energy behind it and it’s so hard to explain, but its the feeling of starting to feel whole. I finally feel like this is what I need to be doing.

Whoever knows me that is reading this is, you know that I am a musical person. I post videos here and there. I play guitar, some keyboard and ukulele. This is exactly what I tell people. For so long there has been no passion behind the words. Almost like its a whatever talent. It’s sad because I can remember a time where that’s all I wanted to do. I was such a creative kid. In so many different ways. This word will be common throughout this, but I’ve realized, at some point in my life I decided that my creativity wasn’t good enough. Good enough for who? I am not sure yet.

I’ve decided to divulge into my memories to understand the person I am today. Why I think the way I do. Why I have been feeling the way I do. And they day old question: what really makes me happy? And what better way than to bring it back to the first thing I ever remember loving to do. Singing with my Grannie.

My love for music started with my Grannie. As a young child maybe 6 or 7, I remember she’d open up a beautiful leather case, the gold buckles, and crimson red velvet on the inside, that carefully held her Autoharp. She’d make a point of shutting off the TV and would place her handwritten gospel song on her music stand, the musical alphabet written slightly above each lyrical line. A memory that brings so much nostalgia. The house filled with music. I was so surprised when she asked me to sing with her one day. Our first song together was Its Me Again, Lord.

Yesterday I told this story to my boyfriend Justin. I couldn’t believe I had never mentioned that story before. The more I thought about it the more I realized how amazing my Gran is to teach me such a gift. I have had this talent that I doubted for a long time, and its time to stop thinking that way. I want to get back to my roots and really, really explore them.

So my big project idea....

I am going to learn how to play the Autoharp. I want to learn it because I want to sing and play all the songs I used to perform with my Grannie. I am going to track my learning progress by different mediums. It feels fitting as there were many different things and events that has brought me to this point in my life. By writing, photos, videos - any way to show the different avenues of this awakening.

If you decide to follow along, it is my hope you will get as much out of it as I will be. I’ll talk to you soon.