Just Breathe.

     I was driving home the other day after doing something, listening to the Broadway channel on Sirius XM when I heard a song that I recognized, but I couldn't remember where at first. The song was "Breathe" from the musical, In The Heights, by Lin Manuel-Miranda. If you can't remember it, or if you're not familiar with the show, I'll give you a bit of background about this song as well as one character in particular. We are told that Nina has just returned from college for break, and is spoken of very highly by everyone else in the show. Before she shows up, we meet her proud parents (or father, if you're watching the movie which removed her mother from the equation), and everyone is excited to see her. It's a really interesting way to introduce her to us, as the audience, first hearing about her before we actually see her appear, since she's one of the few major characters that doesn't appear in the opening number of the show.

    Nina is home from Stanford for the summer, but what she hasn't told anyone is that she's not doing well. This has shaken her confidence pretty significantly, and also makes her feel like she is nothing more than a disappointment. She has always been the smartest girl in the community, the top of the class all through grade school, but she's having a hard time making the grade now that she's in college.

    The song, "Breathe," is very different from the rest of the music in the show, and I think that's one reason why it stands out so much to me. Almost all of the music in this show is pretty loud and bombastic, allowing this to be one of the few times that we get something of a one-on-one with these characters. Nina talks about how it feels to be back home with so many people that she's grown up with in this community. She discusses how everyone knows that she's going to be great, not worrying about her at all, but she also grapples with the thought that she just can't live up to the expectations that everyone has. She knows that she's viewed as "the one who made it out," she's expected to succeed, she's the first in her family to go to college. The whole neighborhood is rooting for her to make the world a better place for them. She's dealing with all of these different expectations and worries about not going back, remembering how things were when she was a kid, and in the middle of this, her inside voice (occasionally also expressed by the company around her) reminds her to just breathe. She worries about how her parents will react if she decides to not go back to school for this next semester, and how the community will respond to her if she tells the truth about how she feels. Why am I bringing this up this week? I think everyone goes through situations like this.

    We all go through times where we're anxious about the state of things, not sure how things will turn out and uneasy of the pressures placed on us. It can be really hard to keep moving along sometimes, and much easier to think about the concept of just giving up, to stop with the struggle. I've found it's best when in situations like that to sit with it for a while. Make a pros/cons list, and then see the right way to continue on. It's hard to be in a mindset like this, especially when you're as young as Nina in this story (19). It makes me think about how I was when I was this age, as well as some of the students that I work with who are getting ready to go to college. There are many struggles ahead, and there will be times where it will feel easier to give up, but there's excellent advice in the song as well. Breathe. Take a moment, take a breath, and don't let yourself close off. There are so many that believe in you and your efforts, they don't mean to oppress you, they just have so much faith in you, and in your abilities that they simply cannot fathom an outcome that you couldn't handle. Just breathe. So many know what you're capable of and more than wishful thinking or being nice, there are many out there who know what you can do and choose to bet on you. What if you had the confidence in yourself that others have? I think it's worth telling you what the community around Nina is saying as she's singing this song. It's in Spanish, but it translates to, "Keep walking the path all your life, and if you lose my tracks, may God bless you. Breathe." These people that surround us are here to cheer us on even if we feel overwhelmed by expectations and doubts.

    I'll give a little spoiler here for the end of the show. Nina decides to go back to Stanford, dedicated to helping the world get better with what she learns. She makes the hard decision to continue her schooling with promises of coming back home to make things better someday soon. Even though everything seemed to be crashing down around her, she saw her potential and trusted it... she just needed to take a break to breathe. Now, when was the last time you allowed yourself to just breathe?

    Thanks for reading this post, friends! Like I said, I heard this song the other day, and I just felt like something had to be said about this. This could be partially just because of the season that we're in, where so many things are happening and the seniors are graduating, ready to start the next leg of their life's journey. Seniors, congratulations for all of the accomplishments, and I'm rooting for you as you begin a new chapter! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Dreamer, and I'll talk to you again soon. Just breathe.