2/9/15

When I was a child before I started school I used to love hearing my sisters practice piano and to listen to my dad play as he does most days.  I was so excited to start going to school because that meant that I too could begin my lessons playing piano and I too would begin to be able to create things in the same realm as the people who were most important to me.  I would go with my mom to pick up my sisters from their lesson from the teachers home who lived just down the road from our house.  She was an elderly lady with full on gray hair and the classic big round glasses on her wrinkled face.  She would give me pieces of candy whenever I would come to visit.  This gave me even more of a reason to want to start going to lessons of my own.  I was so eager and so ready to learn.  The first few years were good and I learned a lot of basics though I realized early that I never had too great of a potential for the craft.  I also had troubles following the music with my eyes and translating what I saw into the appropriate finger movements.  It seemed as if the teacher took this as a personal slight at some point and this began a very rocky and almost abusive relationship between student and teacher.  I felt inadequate and was quickly overwhelmed by the expectation that I would progress as fast or faster than my sisters.  My teacher became very critical of my performance during lessons and it really gave me a bitter feeling during my practice time at home.  I became lax in my practicing efforts which only exacerbated the negative feelings I was having about my performance.  This was very noticeable to the teacher but instead of nurturing and trying to help me grow she began calling me things like worthless, pathetic, and awful, in regards to my playing, but I took this as an extension of who I was and my value as a person.  I would often come back from practice crying and for three years I begged my parents to allow me to quit playing but for some reason they did not take me seriously or believe what I told them of my experience.  I was being openly ridiculed and made to feel worthless in a space that was meant to be that of growth and development.  I was at the end of what I felt I could bare so I asked my dad to come with me to a lesson and just sit outside in the waiting area so she would not know that he was there.  He was shocked and almost revolted by my teachers behavior and that was the last time I had a piano lesson.  I had such a feeling of relief and almost felt as if I had broken off a piece of what was dragging me down.  At the time I was not aware of the damage that prolonging my suffering would do to my psyche nor was I aware of the great amount of self awareness that I would be able to develop through further trials and struggles with women who had a similar pattern to her behaviors.  This experience is not something that I feel bad about any longer because I can recognize that I would not have such a meaningful life today had I not had undergone such suffering.  This experience as a child helped to craft the type of woman I would look for to be my wife and life partner which in its own right led me to other types of suffering and experiences that are still paying off today.   It truly is amazing how things can come full circle if you maintain a good perspective and search for the happiness in all things.  

More to come.