Do you ever just realize you belong somewhere? [Or at least, it feels that way?]
[I mean, on the one hand, I don’t know anything anymore. I feel like I’ve been changing my mind a lot in the last few years about what my life is “supposed” to be, or where or how I do it. So, I dunno. Maybe don’t trust what I think I know…]
However.
I’m just gonna say how I feel right in this moment right now – which funnily enough, I think is similar, just stronger than how I felt after last year’s final.
I’m glad that I stuck with BMI, because it really feels like I “belong” there.
[Another side note about belonging: It’s a little funny to me to talk about it in that sense because a fair amount of themes/songs/lines we explored while musicalizing The Good Place this year was “belonging” and where does one “belong.” (Obviously, these were bigger themes of morals and stuff, not just what state should you live in. But still.)]
I just – our performance went so well.
And it went well last year too. And the original audition went great too.
So, maybe it’s time to stop being so surprised every time something goes well at BMI.
If we look back through my life, there are all these little things we can point to that sort o make me feel in various ways like I was “meant” to be a musician.
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[These are just random snippets, skip to the next dotted line to skip these lil’ steps along memory lane]
My parents love to tell the story of how for my piano recital, as like a 5-or-so year old, I walked up there without my book [the only one to do that], and as someone tried to hand me one, I was like “don’t need it,” and I played the song from memory.
I’m sure it was an incredibly easy song. I was 5. But it’s a story they like to tell that they feel kind of illustrates that I just “got it.”
I went to this songwriters’ expo thing in middle school and got really positive responses. And this A&R rep was like “you are meant to do this. Keep working at it. You’re just in middle school. So, we’re not like, hiring you, but stick with this.”
He could’ve been being nice. But I like to think it was really real.
I got into Berklee. And while there, for one of my assignments, I was told “of the things I heard today, this is the only one that could be a pop song I hear on the radio.
…These are just a few random stories, and alone they mean nothing. And maybe even together and mixed with a whole bunch of other random stories from high school and college and beyond, maybe they still mean nothing…
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But ultimately, this soooort of feels like what I’m “supposed” to do.
I mean, I could be wrong (of course). I’ve obviously struggled trying to find my way in this career/this path. And you could argue that if I’m “meant” to do this, I’d be making my money this way already. And I’m not…. But like, it just feels right when I’m there.
[Now, as I’m going back to things I drafted in 2019, as I’m trying to catch the blog up to nowadays, I said something here that was like “I’ll expand on this tomorrow.” And then I never wrote tomorrow’s. And at this point, I do not remember what I was going to say.
I just know I’m really happy that I felt like I belonged. And I’m super happy, because they obviously thought I did too. What magic!