I traveled through the motions of starting a new life. Attended classes. Oriented to campus. I wrote a diary entry to two overweight, over~opinionated freshman week professors - certainly less than willing or interested in being present at school that first week before school actually began. I shared loneliness. Missing the familiar, the friendships I'd built while attending high school. Those friendships, young love, all good things for any teenage girl, came to me from within the walls of a band room. Where separate, lost souls gathered together to create sweet music. Where life, real and poignant, yet shared, once dwelled. Now. I was to begin again. My two professors advised I leave the past in the past. Take a step. Make a new friend.
I was in over my head at the university level. Playing piccolo. Where an upperclassman had once appropriately sat, I now sat. Watching. Scared. I couldn't play piccolo. Not like I played the flute. Yet, one day, one audition. My nervous fingers flew across the key pads. And, apparently, I hit a few notes. That sounded like the right notes. And I found myself playing picc. At the state level. Noticed by colleges. Universities. Scholarships. Interest.
And now. I sat there. Amongst so many women. And men. Beards. Voices. A drunken conductor. And one girl. Friend? "Will you be my friend?" I wondered. I don't know how I found out. How I found out that she was a freshman, too. Yet, I did. And that first week, I turned to her. And I stated, "I am a freshman, too!" And I asked, "Will you be my friend?" And the story continued. Friend located.
Friendships. And good things. From within the walls of an auditorium. And coaching. My young daughter. "How do you make a friend, Mom?" How? How. You turn to her, and you ask her, "Will you be my friend?" And a lifetime later. You are. You still are.
And she starts a blog. And she's funny. And sweet. And honest. And you'll like her. Like I do.
Welcome, Erika. To Blogging. Missed you.
Welcome.
(This one's for you...)
