Today I was just thinking about how I really only have three weeks left of school. And it made me think back to this past year. I'm not gonna lie, this year has been tough, tougher than I ever could have expected it to be. It seems like this year has been a year of rejection. Every time I turned around, I got knocked down. Trig and Pre-Calc didn't go how I wanted. I felt stupid because all of my friends were in AP and Honors classes while I was in "regular" classes. I met this girl and tried to help her through her struggles and tough times dealing with pregnancy. Little did I know that she fed me lies about this boy that I was becoming very attatched to. It was as if I was flying I was so happy and optimistic. Then the first bomshel hit me. This boy asked another girl out-I was in shock. This girl had lied to me. The pain was some of the worst I think I have ever felt in my life. I had lost the guy I had hoped to spend more time with AND I had lost a friend. Bomshel #2 my sister flipped out and decided she didn't want to be apart of my life anymore. Little by little, she disconnected herself from me. The one person that I had looked up to from the time I was little just decided that she didn't love me anymore. But I kept my head afloat-God wouldn't give me more than I could handle. Then came the musical tryouts. These were supposed to be pretty easy since I had made it the past two years. Of course what else happened, but that I didn't make it in. I was in shock (and of course I cried). I felt like I was terrible. I was trying to keep it together-I would be in pit orchestra as one of the four violins and I would keep my head up. My friends and famiy supported me and I continued on. I made it with an intense respect for the people in pit because they definitely don't recieve the respect they deserve. Finally, the one audition that my four years had depended on arrived. Singers! I was going to do it. I would get out of this rut. Unfortunately, things did not go the way I planned them...God had something else in mind. After all the summer school and extra courses I had been taking to fit Singers into my schedule-I didn't make it in. Once again, the wave of shock pounded me in the face. My best friend just hugged me and let me cry it out (you can see a theme here). I felt once again that I was a horrible musician and that I had no talent. I wondered what other people thought of me, and I felt close to hopeless. I've been contemplating everything this week, and I've realized that God put all of this in my life for a reason. To be a musician, I've gotta have tough skin, and I need to be able to handle rejection. If I can handle this, then I can handle other rejections. These weren't because I wasn't good enough or that I was terrible. It's because of the choices the other people made. It wasn't my fault. And yes, I did beat myself up about the guy thing. Was I not pretty enough? Was I too fat? What was wrong with me? But it wasn't me. He had someone else in mind, and there's nothing that I could've done to change that. Looking back on this year, I'm thankful God gave me the opportunity to get through all of this to look into the future with hope and a newfound motivation to take up more instruments and enjoy music as much as possible. And I'm even thinking of running a marathon. Ha!