“You can be the outcast, or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love. Or you can start speaking up.” —‘Brave’ Sara Bareilles. I was the girl who, in a room full of people, nobody would ever notice. I was the girl standing in the corner. Never the center of attention. Never voluntarily sharing more than my name. It was a wonder I made any friends. But I did. What I didn’t realize at that time was that the majority of these “friends” only stayed around for the benefits. All I’m going to disclose about that at this point is that I made a fairly decent floor mat. Things changed though, as things tend to do. I just needed to take a step back and examine my life through someone else’s eyes. And having an encouraging piano teacher did wonders for me, too.

I had an interest in music from a rather young age. I wanted to learn how to play an instrument. Any instrument would have been ok. But I genuinely wanted to learn to play the piano. I receive curious looks when I tell people that I know how to play piano. A few people respond with, “I’d prefer to play guitar,” or “The piano? Did your mom make you learn?” My mom did not force me to go. She did pressure me to practice when I didn’t care to, and she encouraged me. My parents gave me my first keyboard for Christmas when I was 9. And in June of the next year I started taking lessons from Lennet. She was an excellent teacher, but she didn’t truly have time to develop personal relationships with a student, since she had oodles of them. When I was 12 she decided to take a breather from giving lessons, due to a busy schedule. Consequently I was left hanging. For a few months I just sort of dilly-dallied around, reviewing songs I already knew and trying to learn a few new ones. But I didn’t progress at all.

In 2010 I began lessons with Barbara. She was awesome from the get-go, and not just at teaching me how to read notes. Piano lessons became more than just learning how to play. Barbara slowly worked on getting me out of my comfortable little shell. I’m assuming she did this without realizing it. I’ve never honestly questioned this, but it just seemed consistent of her personality. She encouraged me with just little words of wisdom when I needed them.

Barbara did and said a lot that made me feel better about myself and eventually I gained a little self-confidence, but I’ll just stick to a few illustrations. When I play for actual live people it induces so much nervousness that my hands shake and I hit the wrong notes, resulting in a wince and an “ouch” from me and a burst of laughter from Barbara. “At least we know you’re not tone-deaf,” she’d say. Another example would be when I adopted the habit of stopping cold in the middle of the song every time I landed on a wrong note. “Just keep going,” she’d tell me a million times an hour,“nobody else will notice.” Occasionally I'd falter in the middle of playing since I wasn’t sure that what I'd just played was right. In that moment I'd listen for her reassuring voice to say, “You’ve got it! Keep playing ‘cause that was perfect!” Recently she’s taken to telling me that I don’t truly need her, that I know everything there is to know. “The only reason you still need me is to motivate you to practice,” she admits to me. I don’t know if that's true, but knowing that someone has that much faith in you is an outstanding feeling.

Little things like this slowly built up my self-confidence and I began to see that people were taking advantage of me. I’d like to say that I had done something to put a stop to it, but I haven’t reached that point yet. I have put myself out there a lot more and now have a few true friends, and I can honestly say that it has done me a world of good. In many ways I am still the girl in the corner, the introvert. But to those who know me best, I am so much more than that. I am the girl who found herself through music.