I’ve tried starting this post more times than I can patiently count to. It’s a story about how I overcame one of my biggest barriers to success and how it ultimately spring boarded me to where I am now. It’s full of errors, lacks proper plot lines, but it was cathartic. Enjoy.

Rough Starts

Lets bring it back to 2005. I was in my freshman year of high school. I didn’t play any traditional sports. Football, baseball, track, none of it was for me. The thing I sort of… fell into, however, was marching band. I had been playing Trumpet since 4th grade and kept doing it because I was actually pretty decent. I was a section leader the last 2 years of high school, I played with the wind ensemble, at one point my middle school band even played with members of Chicago as a benefit concert.

One of the interesting things about being in band (and marching band) is that you’re thought to be a good student. Movies and T.V. shows would have you think that being in the band means that you’re a good student. I, however, did not fit that mold. Not even close.

Truth be told, I was a horrible student. I got mostly F’s from the 6th grade onward. I always managed to get into the next grade by some sort of miracle. Hardly any classes inspired me to do homework. I always felt it to be a useless chore and would instead do things like make a website, write a tutorial on some stupid PHP thing I learned that week, or waste countless hours on Runescape (not countless, they kept track, but I’m too embarrassed to share).

The core of all of this was laziness, the lack of desire to pursue a higher level. I was never pushed in a way that made me feel like a reward was waiting at the end of hard work. The traditional public school system was not designed for people such as myself.

At this point you must be thinking that the hardest thing I ever did was high school. No. False. In fact, remember that bit about marching band? That lead me to the hardest thing I have ever, and will ever, do.

We’ll skip some of the darker areas of my life. All you need to know is that my life hit rough turbulence in my Junior year of high school when my mom passed away suddenly and was forced to live with my aunt and uncle (her sister). While living with them (and frankly, hating it), I was asked by my friend Dylan, who was in band with me, if I’d like to audition for something called Drum Corps. Dylan had competed in a season and was recruiting people from our band to go with him to audition for another season.

I badly wanted to go. But more turbulence was ahead. I was actually suspended for a day. That day just happened to land on the day that Dylan and his family were driving up to Santa Clara, CA for the audition. My aunt and uncle were not about this plan. They argued that the suspension is useless if I go galavanting up to audition for a competitive marching band. I don’t remember the argument that was had (these arguments were typically very nasty). But it ended with something like “if you audition for this, we’re going to be kicking you out”.

Oh what options to have:

Stay in a home that I don’t like living in anyways and miss an audition for something that I actually really wanted to do.

Go anyways, get kicked out, and figure it out later.

I went with option #2. And it was the best decision I ever made.