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"I am letting go"
instrumentation: trumpet sextet, speaker
year composed: 2023 | 9 minutes
after my first year away at college, i spent the summer at home with my family. having been the place where i had become disabled, my home was not an easy place to adjust to. frequent ptsd and panic episodes made me desperate to find some sort of contentment, especially while around the people that i love. i found that this mantra helped for awhile: i am letting go. it didn't matter if i was scared; i just was and i would roll with it. acceptance is never a settled thing. i will never accept my disability or ptsd. i will continue to try to feel better. that summer, though, my desperation left me seeking potential happiness from all directions. i tried writing postcards and letters. i tried dancing at my ymca. i tried swimming, also at my ymca. i eventually tried journaling, which seemed the most helpful. i found this to be true because i could create any reality i wanted. this reality in which there are cats and cattle occupying a sunflower field has appealed to me since i created it. i truly do want to visit a place like it some day. however, in creating this place, i also created the problem of disappointment. i became upset that the happiness i crave might not ever reach me. i continued to dance and swim. and in dancing, i no longer considered myself to be disabled. yes, i still have physical impairments, but i could marvel in the magic of my body. it moved how it wanted. this made me happy, and i didn't need to seek any external source for it to do so. the moral of this composition is simple: you do not need to go anywhere but within yourself to find happiness. doing so can be scary, but it is far less scary than no happiness at all.
The full text can be read in the inside cover of the pdf.
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