Recently I have noticed how close we are to Thanksgiving, and while I love the turkey, dressing, and the rest of the amazing dishes that come with it, I do not want to forget what it is all about. When this time of year comes around everyone says that they are thankful for family, friends, the love of God, and so on and so forth. Now while this is true in my life those things just scratch the surface of what I am thankful for. I am especially thankful for the one thing that God has given me on this earth that makes life make sense, music.
Now when I say that I am thankful for music I know that many of you are thinking "yeah, sure, okay kid we get it you love music," but I don't think that you truly understand. Music is more than just another thing for me. It is more than just a form of entertainment. It's not something that occupies my time and attention, it is the one thing that holds my life together.
Through out my life I have never really had an easy time expressing myself. When I get mad it usually ends up in tears or holes being punched in my walls and when I get the slightest bit sad it turns into an all day activity rather than a moment of emotion. Where others find constructive ways to handle emotions I have always taken them and bottled them in my heart as another thing that is wrong with me. It's just another thing to add to the list of things that I can't do, process emotion.
Throughout my life I would take everything everyone said and bare it deep within me, as if that were the definition of who I was as a human being. That led to overthinking things that I did at an early age. Sports, yeah I was awful at them. School, I made pretty good grades but I was never a star student. Let's not even think about a career; but when I discovered music it opened up a door to so many things.
I learned my first set of chords on guitar, the typical G progression G, Em, C, and D and after that I started piecing lines into verses and verses lead to a chorus which developed into full blown songs. Eventually everything I felt made its way into a song. After a while I realized that this, this was the one thing that might put everything in place.
I then started rehearsing my songs and trying to form bands that never really made it past the first show. However, I didn't care, I just wanted to help those around me that had ever felt lost, broken, and forgotten as I had, and sometimes still do. After winning second place my junior year in the THS Idol at my high school with the song I wrote when my uncle passed, I started trying to find places that would let solo performers pour their hearts out. Which is why M.A.D Studios became such a large part of my life just a few short years after. Most shows were tiny. One or two people here and there, sometimes a crowd would trickle in, and sometimes it was even me playing for no one other than my fellow musicians that would follow me, but that didn't matter to me; not as long as I had the chance to touch someones life.
There are so many more ways that music saved me, I could go into it if I felt comfortable enough. To this day when things just seem like they can't possibly get better or when I feel like I can never amount to anything, I put on my headphones and let the struggles that other singer songwriters go through tell me I am not alone in this. Sometimes I even pick up my guitar and pound it out on the very 6-strings that I found my purpose on. Music gave me meaning, it validates my usefulness, and it keeps me sane. Music saved me.
Anyone that would like to share their story can reach me by email at : kendallslevesque@gmail.com
or
Check out my music at :
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/kendalllevesquemusic/
BandCamp: https://kendalllevesque.bandcamp.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kendall-levesque-1
