The Song of Home

Today. It was all about today. The one day when the nerves slid through your body like tiny bolts of electricity, where they bounced off every little nerve making you feel like walking electricity.

The stage was set for the performance, but was your mind set? No, the mind was never set until the music started flowing, flowing like the winds of a midsummer day, like a river on the edge of over flowing. Everything was prepared, the stand, the lights, the chair, even the energy of the audience was pulsating throughout the auditorium. The energy, the appreciation, that was always held around music, was overwhelming. So overwhelming that sometimes you feel like your drowning in other people's anticipation of what they might hear.

Would the song be exciting? Fearful? Emotional? The audience never knew, and to you, that was thrilling, thrilling beyond belief to have so much power over so many people, just because of the unknown.

You had your things, the music, the instrument. Your heart was racing so fast you could hear it in you ears, your stomach. You feel like crying, but it's not because you're scared, no, the excitement of playing the most beautiful songs with racing melodies and heart catching breaks.

You have never had jitters this ridiculous before, they were out of control, the shaking hands, the nervous breathing. The performance was going to be the best you have ever done, and if it wasn't, then you would at least know that you tried.

Tried so hard to do the one thing that people most loved you for, your music. The amount of love, passion, and emotion that you've demoted to music is unrelenting and strong. The one and only thing you've ever felt the need to care about, to try to be the best at. Dying, knowing that this is what your life had been for would be enough.

You prayed to the things you most dearly loved, the good, the bad, the in between, the things that most people would care to ignore. Not you, you needed all the help and support you so dearly lacked, and wished you could have back.

The sweat streaking in tiny bubbles down your back and neck were soft, comforting almost. The indicator of true living was all you truly needed to be able to walk onto the stage that was only steps before you.

Crying was futile, it would crumble your mind, and the last thing you needed was to not be focused. Focused of the one task you had been preparing for your entire career, your life, even.

You wanted to go out, to get it all over and done with, but that wasn't a part of the plan, you hadn't been called, going out without being called would be disgraceful and so insufferably rude.

You were going to make the world proud.

The song was perfect, but were you? No, how could you be? No one ever was, but you were going to try, going to try so much that it almost felt as if you could float through the music rather than play it.

Music is an escape, as it has been for the past many years, an escape from the pain, the hurt, the chaos. The burning desire to end it all, and the desire to continue on out of fear for failure, failure of the ones who so dearly loved you all those many years ago.

The audience would clap, they would whistle and cheer, but you have to be confident.

Without confidence, there would evidently be no cheer, clap, or whistle, only the complete silence which involved a performance so spectacular, that there was no noise to be made, or so awful the performance didn't deserve the praise of the people is so dearly required appraisal from.

So confident in your ability to play like there was nobody there to make them cheer, to make them see you for the emotions that flowed through you and into the very music you cried out.

The stage was set, you could see it all in front of you. There was nothing out of place, not a thing, but your presence, could it ruin that? No, you needed to be confident, confident in your ability to do what you've been training to do since that fateful day where you lost everything, absolutely everything and everyone you loved, you will redeem their losses with the last gift you could give to them. Your success.

When the performance was over, they would smile at you, smile at the joy you'd brought others, and then, you would be happy and would be able to rest where they waited so patiently for your arrival.

So, when you looked into that stage light, you saw hope, love, and everything still good in the world.

Your name was called, you could hardly register the noise coming from the perfectly coordinated sound system that blared slightly over head.

Without registering the noise, you could feel in your heart it was time, time to walk out onto that stage and prove to the world that you could be what everyone told you that you couldn't, couldn't ever be brave.

You walked towards your seat, the sweat becoming a cool mist on your back from the change of location, the coolness chilling your frantic nerves.

As you sat down a tear slipping from your eye, you prayed they would watch, and see that you survived and you were doing this for them, you always have.

Looking out into the audience, you could almost see them.

Your sister, your brother, the parents who so dearly loved you, and that dog, the happiest little dog with the happiest little smile that he always had.

As you looked to those who loved you, and possibly those who will, you picked up your chin, took one breath, and let it all out, all the emotion, pain, suffering, all those lonely nights where you had never felt like you would ever be enough, and it was thrown, thrown so hard into that song you most certainly considered home.