I am who I am today!

Day 7 - Someone/something that has the biggest impact on you.

I know that I talk about this alot, but I just can't explain how much this has changed my life. My earliest memories are of listening to music, singing lessons, watching my oldest brothers sing, singing in church, watching musicals, etc.

Every where I have turned, I have had music right there with me. It is able to describe every mood I have ever been in with words that I feel sometimes reach into my very soul.

I remember one time last year when I was in a very dark place, I was struggling to face things from my past and I felt alone. Someone played this song and it touched me so deeply - "You Are Loved" by Josh Groban. I was moved beyond words, tears started falling down my cheeks and I could feel the love from everyone I knew. All of this from a song that was 3-4 minutes long!

I remember listening to classical pieces on the radio with my dad and we would both start conducting the orchestra. Or when I was younger, I would go out and feed the chickens and sing the song Belle sings after Gaston asks her to marry him. I would then run up the hill behind the house and start singing my own songs about life - I was such a dramatic girl! :)

I love when you enter a church and you can hear the organ playing. I don't know if it is because my father has always played the organ and taught me to play. I get chills when it is being played and the whole room is filled with the beautiful sound! My favorite place to listen to the organ is the Tabernacle, the pipe organ there is like none other! Ever since I was a child I have wanted to play that organ! If I ever find a genie that will be my first wish.

When I went to college and started to lose the hearing in my left ear, I thought my life was over (apparently my being dramatic didn't end when I was a child)! I cried for days, okay... weeks, and was angry!!! It wasn't until I was talking with my friend Trevor that I realized what an idiot I was being. He simply told me that I still had one good ear and to quit crying about it!

I love that music makes sense! It uses both your right and left side of your brain. I love that it is always surrounding us - grocery store, elevator, cell phone, on hold, movies, television, theme parks, video games... so many places!!

I believe that my love of music came from two very musically talented parents. My father who sings, plays the piano and organ. My mother who sings and showed us the fantastic world of musicals and broadway! Thanks to both of my parents who worked so hard to make sure I went to clogging, band, piano, voice, show choir, B-Bar-D, guitar. I am one very lucky girl! :)

But the talent doesn't stop there - my siblings have great voices, play piano, guitar, flute, clarinet, guitar, harp, write their own music, or have introduced me to artists/genres that I wouldn't otherwise know about. Seriously - how can one person be so lucky!?!?

Music has helped to shape me into the person I am today - it has had the greatest impact on my life. It has given me ways to express myself when words fail. It has always been there even when I don't even remember my own name! Music has and always will be a major part in my life!