Why am I doing this?

Why am I doing this is the question that has been constantly running through my mind this week. Every time I practice the piano, every time I'm at a piano lesson, every time I even think about music. Why am I doing this?

Why am I doing this?

I don't consider myself a musical person. My feelings don't magically become expressed when I sit down and play a song. I DON'T enjoy performing one little bit. I DON'T enjoy practicing. Every time I play the piano I feel like I am in a cage. TRAPPED. Trapped in my body that HURTS from years of not using my body correctly when I play the piano, because I DON'T KNOW how. I have told every teacher how much it HURTS when I play, how many back pains I get because I am so tense when I play. They try to explain how to be relaxed while I play, how to play loudly without using so much physical strength and using mental strength instead. but I just don't get it. and I'm scared, cause this isn't getting any better. and it's not going to get any better and who knows how much damage I've already done to myself. It's a serious thing...I can handle pain but I can't handle knowing that I've down unrepairable damage to myself that could end in a number of even more serious problems down the road. I HATE that I am beginning to associate music with pain. It hurts when I play, it hurts when I sing.

Why am I doing this? What's the point to this? I don't enjoy this, I'm pain. Give up won't you, Steph?

But who would I be if I didn't play the piano?

It's such a ginormous part of who I am. "Do you know who Stephanie Gonzalez is?" "Ohhh, the girl who plays the piano, right?".

But see here's the thing. Who I am doesn't depend on what I do or don't do. My identity is in who I BELONG to. I belong to the KING. The CREATER. To GOD, my heavenly father. That's the only way I can find who I am, what I was made for. I don't know if God made me to play the piano or not, if that's my purpose in life. but I do know that if I look for my identity in Him, rather than in a row of ivories, I will find it. and I think there IS a reason for why I have spent hours and hours every week practising the piano even though I feel so broken right now and so ready to throw up my hands and say I never want to play again.

There's another reason, too. Every time I'm angry and frustrated because I can't seem to push past this wall that I'm stuck behind right now, music starts flowing from my heart. and it sounds exactly like what's in my soul that I can't explain any other way. I can't seem to express myself in music written by other people, but I can when I am composing. and I think maybe, just maybe that's why, that's why I am doing this.