Music does a lot of things to people. It can change our emotions, make us feel things. I believe that music can shape our lives, help us prepare and cope with things that we may struggle with. Somehow we also find some fun in it.

When I was little, I started getting nightmares every night, I still do frequently. After a while, my parents would be too tired to get up, and when they did, they wouldn’t really help me, even though they tried. So I stopped waking them. It was really hard for a while. I wouldn’t know what to do. Waking suddenly with tangled brown hair that fell to the middle of my small back, still damp from the shower I’d had the night before and the sweat from my fear. My face had tear streaks, and my bottom lip quivered, my first instinct still being to run to my parents, but I wouldn’t. I would sip my water as I gathered my stuffed animals that had fallen off my bed earlier in the night and possibly my pillows if they had been thrown away in my terrorized state, and sit up in the middle of my bed. Pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals built a fort around me. I would huddle in my yellow rubber duck pajamas with all my stuffed animals surrounding me. I would start singing different songs, ones I had learned at school, in church, or just one of my favorites. My voice was barely a whisper, and my voice high, but to me it was loud, as if the stuffed animals and I were a singing chorus. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. We were the only thing to pay attention to. After singing to what seemed like hours, I would finally drift off to sleep in a happy state, and not remember any dreams the next morning.

I also started playing music when I was young, although it didn’t develop until I was older. In church, starting when I was in kindergarten, I was in the chorus. I remember not knowing what to do or sing. But I loved it. I adored the teacher and many of my friends were in it. I discovered my passion for singing there. When I was in the 4th grade, I got a violin, and later that year, a guitar. Whenever I practiced my guitar, I cried. I hurt myself a few times to get out of playing it, scratching and cutting my hands and fingers. Why Santa would give me something that I hated? I had to take private lessons and practice instead of play with my toys. Violin was enforced by the school, then my mother, and I was okay with having it for a while. But my friends started dropping out of it in the fifth grade. The class had shrunken by the end of the year.

A handful of us moved on to the same middle school, and very few people held on to their instruments. Most people dropped their instruments and went into the arts, me and my friends being some of them. One of my friends and I took after school lessons together for the first year. She quit before seventh grade. I after Christmas the year after. I miss it every once in awhile, but I didn’t feel good enough to be in an orchestra. However, I got an offer to join a Garage Band, and learned that I loved to play with others. I got a clearer love of music. I joined the choir in the 8th grade, something I hadn’t done since I was younger in church. It was my least stressful class, and I learned much about music and how to use it.

Music is now my stress relief. Being the easily nervous person I am, I need help talking to others, staying calm enough to do homework, or anything at all. In class I am often singing under my breath a tune that brings back happy memories from places like camp. As soon as I get home, I am plugged in listening to music. Doing my homework, I sing and listen to calming music. When I am alone, I play guitar with the volume turned all the way up and scream the lyrics, whatever was in my head that day, or lyrics that are speaking to me. Sometimes, I’ll find lyrics that someone else recommended to me; then I am with the person without the anxiety of how I act around them.

When I listen to music, I am in my own little bubble, but somehow the world is with me inside of it. I listen to different types of music, able to change my emotions and mood. Some songs I only find joy in when I am with others, it's a way to break the social anxiety wall, something I am truly confident in. I can talk about the different artists and songs I like, introduce new music to others while they introduce some to me. Now, I can control myself in awkward situations and calm my anxious mind with a few notes or lyrics.
Music has a special place in all of us, and we should all make music a part of our lives. I believe that with music, we can learn more about ourselves, and about others.