I Quit Music…Kinda

Ever since I can remember, I have loved music.

I remember days when we would all do chores around the house with music blasting through our Brooklyn apartment.

One particular memory sticks out, the music was playing, everyone was cleaning and I looked over at the sheer white curtains in our living room as a breeze came through our window pushing the curtain up. I don’t know why my brain latched on to that image. It was so beautiful, peaceful and one of my happiest moments.

So many of my happiest moments have been around music.

When I was about 6 or 7, I was sent to live in Haiti. We wore uniforms and kids got the sense knocked into them with the ruler to the hand if they didn’t memorize their studies.

Thankfully I never experienced that in school. I was actually a good student then.

What I did experience was singing a Whitney Houston song at a school event.

It was probably “Greatest Love of All”. So cliché, but I was living. 

I never sought music out. It just always found me. It called me, it stalked me, it roped me in. All I have ever done was love it. I love music in the purest way. 

There would always be someone I know or someone I’d meet that would have an opportunity or someone they thought I should meet. I’d just follow the rabbit holes and to be completely honest, I didn’t always like where it was taking me. Sometimes I hated it.

Once I got aquatinted with the business my confidence started to take a beating.

The music industry is full of fear mongering, power hungry, broken and desperate energy. It’s rotten at its core.

It will try to get into your head if you’re too close to the center. The message is always on some level that you aren’t enough or you need to be different somehow. It’s so impossible to know and love who you are to survive it with your dignity and love for music in tact.

It was hard to tell who was a real friend and who was a climber who just wanted something from you.

There was a time I didn’t trust my own intuition and remained loyal to a fault.

Some of it was motivated by fear and the need to hide, but most of it was complete naïveté. I was utterly clueless for a while about how much people DGAF about anyone else.

 I trusted too easily and I held on for too long.

Circumstances pushed me towards growth.

It was evolve or die. So, I changed.

I met lots of people, wrote more songs than I could possibly ever count. Some experiences were beautiful and inspiring.

Like any abusive relationship, those moments were few and far between. People like me love music so much sometimes it can take a while (if it ever happens) for us to ask ourselves why we’re on a certain track.

We love it so much we will give it our minds, bodies, souls and definitely our coins.

Whenever things seemed to be getting muddy around music, I’ve always taken a step back to reassess.

I’m not sure what happened. Maybe it was a sense of facing my own mortality. Maybe it was laying on an operating table accepting I may wake up without my uterus, but my something is different.

The path I found myself on this year was already shaping up to be one of alignment, attracting and paying more attention to the universe’s clues and nudges.

It’s hard to explain. Once I started to be able to think again and walk without being hunched over, I felt a lot of clarity. There was a hint of anxiety too. It felt like all of my doing and efforting was wasteful.

Music is my first love. I continue to create and share music because I absolutely love it.

The questions came up around what I’m chasing and why. I’m still sorting through it, but I’m definitely in a different place.

I’m thinking a lot about legacy, and when I am ready to have a child - what will that be? What am I building? What future am I creating? Who’s hands do I put that future in if not my own?

Look, I don’t have all the answers. All I know is right now it’s critical for me to focus on what is abundant in my life and to move forward differently.

My life is so off the beaten path, I can’t tell you right now how it’s gonna go. All I can say is I’m searching more within and doing what I can with what I have.

I’ve been on the industry’s treadmill for way too long. The world is a lot different than it was when I was a kid looking up to the stars of the day.

It’s time to redesign the dream.

It’s time to reassess and focus on my passions with renewed energy, curiosity and experimentation at the forefront. If there’s no one right way, what are some other ways I can live in my purpose with music? What am I not seeing?

There are so many paths to take and so many yet to be designed. Taking my chances on the latter.

I hope we’ll all figure out the right ones for us.

“Personal” Music Video https://youtu.be/IpBVbH8Qx-U

Photo: Erin Baiano

Styling: Kasha Reavis asst KiphTheStylist

Gabriela Ostolaza jacket

Leanne Marshall top @ Rivier Agency

9to5 Socialite Shorts via Confessional Showroom NYC