Man, it's been forever since I've thought of writing a monologue.

So, you may notice that my history has blowing up with band. Seriously, almost everything I talk about these days is band. I really get this out. This is the most meaningful monologue I've ever written - even bigger than #BULLYING, #MONOLOGUES, #SWEARING, or any other monologue you can think of.

Little backstory (maybe). So, it's a pretty common fact that anyone who knows me knows that I love band. I talk about it all the time, I'm constantly missing things and sacrificing opportunities for it, and I often scare my friends because I'll be crying just thinking about my experience with the band.

Since before I can remember, I've always dreamed of having the opportunity to play in band. I was the one thing that kept me excited for the next year, no matter what everyone would say about me. However, these past schools have made me feel like a dog trying to get a treat from its owner - seeing it just in reach but never being able to get to it. No matter where I went, I was always either too young, or the school just wasn't willing to pay for it. Could you imagine my joy when I finally got the opportunity to play an instrument?

My first real instrument - after playing the recorder the previous year like there was nothing else worth living for - was the clarinet. Honestly, I had never given a second thought to the thing; I wanted to play the trumpet. But noooo, everyone said that I should play the clarinet because I would be sooo awesome at it.

Spoiler alert: I wasn't.

I liked the thing for, like, the first few weeks I was playing it. And then I started having problems. No, let me rephrase that - I never liked the thing. I liked the idea of having the opportunity to play. I would complain about practicing all the time. No matter how long I would practice, I could never get a single song right. Over a period of more than two years, it got progressively worse. At some point, I would get so painfully frustrated with the thing I would get the powerful urge to just chuck it across the room and break it into a million pieces. Even when I had a junior from the high school helping me with it, nothing would ever ease my doubts about the instrument. I remember the last time I was playing with him: about halfway through the session he just put his head down and stayed there for about five minutes before finally telling me to put the instrument away and to try to practice more at home. The next time I went, he didn't show up, and I just crawled into the car and cried for the remainder of the time I was there.

So, a few months later, my mom dragged me into a music store where I tried out the flute and the saxophone. After successfully playing a scale, I left the store and bought a cheap saxophone on Craig's List for $100.

With the saxophone, like the clarinet, it was broken. Whereas the clarinet always had screws popping out of it, literally every single note that would come out of the saxophone was a squeak, no joke. Even the simplest notes would never come out right. I would cry even more over that instrument than I ever did with the clarinet, and I knew from the start that I would never get far with it. During this time I was also trying out the french horn and then later the tuba, but I was never interested in those to begin with. At some point, I was almost ready to admit that I would never be able to play an instrument, and that I should just give up on my dream and stick with the ocarina and the recorder. 

About six months after I bought the saxophone, I finally got proof that the saxophone was broken. The band director tried to get me to play a school saxophone, but I was just thinking, "Get this thing out of my sight before I snap it in half." The only positive memory I can even remotely tie to the instrument was that I marched with the marching band for the first time with it over the summer (Mom thought it would give me confidence in it). So, the band director called me aside and told me that I should try the trombone.

Ah, the trombone. The one instrument that I had always been told to avoid. Mainly because everyone told me it would be hard because each note had a specific position on the slide. Not to mention that I had watched the trombones almost kill each in suicides during the previous year's field show. Nevertheless, I was desperate to find an instrument, so I agreed to try it. Why she didn't put me on the trumpet is beyond me, but I have never been more grateful that she had put me that instrument.

Technically, the first time I had played the trombone was when I was playing the french horn and my brother had his friend, Kevin, over to practice for a concert or something. Don't underestimate Kevin. He is very persuasive. I didn't actually play it, he just told me to try and make a sound.

Anyway, directly after she had told me to play the the trombone, she put me in the locker room with one of the guys from the section. Well, I say one, but it was really two - [Dylan] was also there for some reason. Now, with past instruments, when I would play, everyone would be way too scared to tell me that I didn't sound very good. It bugged me all the time because I would never know what I was doing wrong, so I wouldn't know what to fix. I had always been afraid to tell someone that I suspected my instrument was broken because no one would believe me, even though three out of the four instruments I had tried had something wrong with it. Seriously, I was playing a duck tape tuba when I finally convinced them it had holes.

So, my first day on the trombone, and the one they put me on sounded really airy. I was just thinking, "Well, that settles it. Take this away from me, I'll be able never play an instrument." I wanted to say I thought something was wrong because the same thing happened when the tuba had holes, but I couldn't get myself to. To my surprise, I didn't have to. [Dylan] stepped up while I was playing a note, put his finger over the spit valve, and the note played clearly.

Every single trombone was missing something. It was crazy. They finally found one that was actually playable, though the tuning slide was stuck and the bar that usually goes under the bar that moves the tuning slide was, for some unknown reason, gone. Either way, whenever I wanted to ask about something, I didn't have to because [Dylan] or [Caiden] stepped up and said something. I was able to play a scale by the end of the period, and my band director was excited and asked me if I liked it. I told her I did, but by "I like it," I didn't exactly mean "I can play it." I just meant "I'm willing enough to try, but I won't be able to play it."

And I complained the drum majors could seem pessimistic.

So, during class the next day, like I had done with the saxophone, I just sat there and listened while everyone else played. Even though [Jessica] told me she wasn't very good, I knew right off the bat that she was lying. That, or she just was one of those musicians. It made me feel really dumb - I couldn't play a simple son, and this girl who claims to not know how to play can. I was about ready to cry again because I knew that if I could never get myself to play, I would never be able to play. Then, after the song ended, the two guys that were teaching me the other turned around and asked me a question I will never forget.

"What are you doing?"

I said that I couldn't play the thing. They talked to each for a while and then told me to get a stand and the music. I would never be able to play if I didn't try. Even if I just played a B flat, it wouldn't matter. I was shocked. No one had ever said that to me before. So, though it seemed a bit awkward, I got a stand and pulled out the music. I think I played like a super soft B flat maybe once every four or five measures. The next time they asked me to play something when I said I couldn't play, I just played a B flat and they said, "Congratulations, you can play one note."

I don't remember exactly what happened, but my second day on the instrument was also a day we had band practice, and that was when I met the section leader (she didn't have the period because she was in jazz band) and learned one of the visuals. It was quite weird; first you pump your arm once every other measure for four eight counts, shout "One, two, woop, woop!", bounce the trombone for an eight count, bend over and shake your body for an eight count, repeat twice, bend over and bounce back up for an eight count, repeat the shaking, then pump your arm once more as the cadence ends. I thought it was weird; we did nothing with the saxophone. I did not know that we actually did that during a performance, I thought they were just messing around. I remember laughing when my mom asked me what I did as we were driving home. I think that was the first time I ever felt any sort of reason to keep trying.

About three weeks after I first started to play, we had a short sectional before practice. We were practicing the four songs we would play for a parade: Don't Stop Believing, 25 or 6 to 4, Fight Song, and On Winconsin, and I noticed that as I was playing, I was determined to get the notes right. As [Dylan] was talking about how we needed to play louder, I realized that I felt determined to practice and learn the songs. Before practice when we were eating pizza, I don't even know why, but I just started crying because I realized I was finally confident that I had found the instrument I could play.

To give you guys a recap, I had moved schools this year for unexplained reasons, and to my shock and surprise, I am having very little issues at this school. Not only do I actually have a group of friends, but the band has given me something I had been praying for for seven years. The band gave me confidence, it gave me a place to go when I felt depressed, it gave me a life. I had no life before band! Waking up early to get some peace before school, stepping onto school grounds and getting ready to scream, "Get me out of here," coming home and drowning myself in anime and books to hide the pain? That was no life. I was downright miserable before band.

Now? It's impossible to be alone. When I am, I'm not. Before my first football game, I was so exhausted after practicing suicides and I felt kind of frustrated because I wasn't sure if I was doing it right, not to mention I felt like I was just a waste of space. I literally plopped down on the floor of the band room and fell asleep until the game. I was kind of drifting in and out of sleep, and at some point, apparently some of the drumline wanted to practice, but someone was trying to convince them to let me sleep. I wanted to cry right there, no one had ever cared if they were bothering me or not. In fact, I still get frustrated sometimes after a long sectional or practice, but then my section leader will come up and say something thing "Good job, you guys," and it'll remind me that I'm still learning and that I have people to help me, and I'll want to cry again.

_

UPDATE

I was crying at senior night this year, actually. Everyone thought it was because I didn't want the seniors to leave, but it was really because the everyone was acting reminded me of why I had kept trying in the first place. I remember watching them play when I had first joined; one of them would start to play, and anyone who had their instrument out and knew the song would join in, like a band flash mob. When someone would start to play, they would smile and laugh and get really in to what they were playing. I remember watching them play and just thinking, "I want that." That was the main reason I had kept trying - I had seen the unity within the band, unity that I had never felt before outside of church, and I wanted to be a part of that. During the game that night, I spent the entire game on [Jessica] or [Samantha's] shoulder crying. At some point, [Jessica] even told me that she did not like me the first time she met me. Then she was saying that even though I'm Mormon (they like to tease me about that), I'm not the same as what she expected me to be, which made me cry more because very few people outside of church ever accept me for what I believe it.

And I may or may not have held my section leader captive in a hug for like three minutes when she came back from getting water...

_

Seriously, band is awesome. Never in my life have I met a group more loud, inappropriate, or weird as the band. Never in my life have I sweat more, laughed more, or cried for more. I have literally lost a part of my body due to this instrument (no kidding, read 25 or 6 to 4). I barely have any time to sit down to a good book or binge a show or anime anymore because all of my free time goes in to practicing the trombone. It's like, they'll be a time on the weekends where nothing is happening, and I'm just sitting around not knowing what to do, and then Monday will happen, and my mind will be running around screaming like, "AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" It's insane.

Is it hard? Yes. Is it exhausting? Absolutely. Do I often want to break down into tears because of it? Of course! I do have to admit, my life was way easier before band. And it was extremely hard waiting to find an instrument. If I had chosen to stay in this one school, I would have been in band earlier. Because of my choice to move, I was miserable for the next three years. But because I made that choice, everyone I used to know forgot about me and just don't care anymore, and I am now in my first band. Before band, it would take me forever to get to sleep at night. Now, the second I crash in bed, I'm out ten minutes later. And if I had the chance to go back and change the choice I made, I wouldn't! It gives me such a joyous feeling to think that this is my first opportunity to play in a band. I wouldn't give up my time in this band for anything. Because since I've joined this band, my life has never been better. I have never felt so wanted and so loved in seven years. And I wouldn't trade that for anything.