There’s something you should know about me:
Music has always been one of the deepest parts of who I am. I love singing it, writing it, listening to it. I can get completely lost in it.
Which is why it’s strange to look back and realize that in eighth grade, I slowly started walking away from it. I didn’t know it then, but I was also walking away from parts of myself.
A new understanding of what was "cool" and "not cool" had arrived, and suddenly I was editing myself to fit in.

It went something like this:
Chorus: not cool
Piano lessons: not cool
Playing flute in band: not cool

Sitting around with cool kids listening to cool bands? Very cool.
Actually participating in music? Apparently not. And it wasn’t just music. In English class, I wrote an emotional essay about one of my rock heroes. My teacher loved it. She gave it an A+ and read it aloud to the class. My eighth-grade self wanted to disappear under the desk. Hearing my words read aloud felt like standing in front of the class with my diary open. Middle school has a way of making kids study themselves too closely. Suddenly, you become aware of everything—how you look, what you like, where you fit in, and where you don’t.

It turns out I wasn’t alone. Studies have found that confidence often drops sharply during the middle school years, especially for girls, as social pressure and comparison begin to take over.
Without realizing it, many kids begin creating the version of themselves they think others will accept. I certainly did. I quieted the parts of me that felt too different. Too exposed. At the time, it didn’t feel dramatic. It felt practical. Like survival. But looking back now, I can see it clearly:

I wasn’t becoming more myself. I was becoming less. And it took years to get her back. After a career in business, music found me again. I discovered songwriting and became completely hooked. Then writing found me again too. Slowly, the creative parts of me that had gone quiet in eighth grade started speaking again. That journey became part of the inspiration behind The Orion Sessions. Like me, Orion loves music. But somewhere along the way, she starts believing it’s safer to become invisible than risk being judged. Until music finds her again.
And through it, she begins finding herself too. In many ways, Orion is the girl I wish I had been in middle school: The one who figured out what was happening.
If there’s one thing I hope kids understand, it’s this: Middle school can get very loud about who you’re supposed to be.

But the most important voice is the quiet one inside you saying:

Be the one and only Beautiful You!