How Did I Get Here?

One of my favorite musicals is Jonathan Larson's Rent. I wrote a huge paper comparing it to Giacomo Puccini's La boheme for my music history class. And I've been listening to the soundtrack since I was maybe 14 years old. A song from that musical that continues to send chills up my spine is Halloween. Sung by the all around fantastic Anthony Rapp. His character, Mark, walks around a cemetery that a friend has been recently buried in and tries to remember how current things came to be. He sings: "How did I get here? How the hell?"


I find myself asking this question lately. How did I get here? I'm 20 years old, single, working in a Deli making 25 cents more than minimum wage, with two more years left of college. I'm well aware of where I am and somewhat of where I'm going. But where did I come from? How the hell did I get here?

• On January 7, 1991 I was born. So that's obviously how I came to be 20 years old. 
• The last boyfriend I had was Mathew in 8th grade. How pathetic. I haven't even kissed a guy since him. Talking to people, predominantly attractive people, is difficult and awkward for me. So flirting is usually out of the question. I guess that's how I came to be single.
•  Last summer, I filled out a large number of applications for jobs in the area. No one called me. This year, I applied to the same places and low-and-behold, Foodtown hired me! They put me in the deli because of my experience with serving semi-prepared food. Thus, I slice meats and cheeses all day.
• In high school, my choir director talked about his alma mater all the time. So much that I was eventually interested in seeing the campus and he was more than happy to show me. In no time at all, I was a freshman at Moravian College. And in what seems to be even less time, I was done as a sophomore at Moravian College. I tell people that I chose Moravian because it was small, the music department was great, and the whole liberal arts thing. But the real reason I chose it was because...well...I didn't really choose it. I felt like I had to go to Moravian. My grades weren't good enough to get into other schools and I never actually took the application process seriously. I applied for early decision and scheduled an audition time for the music department. If you were to ask my mom, she would tell you that I applied to Moravian, Temple, and West Chester. But Moravian was my first choice. Little does she, or anyone else, know that I never applied anywhere else but Moravian. I felt like I had it in the bag. Like I didn't have to try so hard because they were going to accept me anyway. And I was right. So, that's the real reason that I live in Bethlehem 9 months out of the year. That's how I got here. 

I'm not sure if I'm proud of myself. There seems to be so much more left for me to do. Like, I'm not yet standing still. So, I can't really know how I got here if I don't know where I am.

Love

Does it really exist like how they write poems and songs about? Will it change my life like it's changed so many other people's? And if so....when? Because I'm starting to believe that alone is just how I'm supposed to spend my life.

Big Girl In A Skinny World

"Maybe I should just go to bed and give up on life."

I had all these plans today. I wanted to hang out with Dana and help her find a birthday present for her boyfriend. Start some laundry. Work out. Wash my hair. I did none of those things. Well hanging out with Dana didn't plan out because I got called in to work. But I totally had time to do those other things. Yet for some stupid, unknown reason...I didn't.

Instead, I sat on my computer looking at pictures of gorgeous, skinny women. Some of them are real life people I'm friends with on Facebook. I looked at recital dresses. All the ones that don't flatter my figure let alone come in my size. And at 11:00pm, I looked at myself in the mirror and said: "Maybe I should just go to bed and give up on life."

Why is it that I feel so beautiful and confident in myself at one moment, and an ugly, waste of space the next? Is society telling me that I'm not skinny enough or pretty enough? Or am I telling myself that?

Something I've always wanted to make a part of my character is being positive. "Always look on the bright side of life." "With every cloud comes a silver lining." And suddenly at the peak of my positivity, that dreadful sentence leaks into my head and spews out of my mouth. That negative, nasty, awful sentence is not a part of my character. So why did I think it? Why did I say it?

I love to follow blogs about being "big and proud"! I love Ashley Falcon and her Big Girl in a Skinny World articles in Marie Claire. But to be completely honest, I'm not happy with myself. It's not that I want to shop and Abercrombie & Fitch. It's more so that I'd like to at least have the option to shop there. Their jeans only go up to a size 12! 12?!?!?!? Not even a 14 or 16! And I wear an 18! I'm not happy that I have to go to "specialty stores" to find clothes that fit me. Why can't everybody's body be the norm?

Someday, I think that I will be 100% comfortable and happy with my body. I just have no clue when that'll be and I don't see it in the near future.

Hello, from The Poconos!

Hi! My name is Jazzy and I'm a twenty year old college student studying Classical Voice Performance. I just completed my second year in college and it's really starting to hit me how fast life changes. A very smart, influential friend of mine once told me: "The only thing constant in life is change." As I grow, (as a musician, a woman, a friend, a daughter, a sister, a lover, a writer, an artist) I'd love more than anything to have something that holds my life as a twenty-something. Something to look back on and reminisce when I'm a thirty-something or forty-something. Thus, this blog begins.

As I sit here in my tiny bedroom, the same one I've been living in since I was maybe 15 years old, watching another Glee finale...I can't help but wonder what I'll be doing on this same day next year. And also, I can't help but to think about where I was a year ago on this day. Time is crazy and my friend was right. The only thing constant in life is change.