How to break out of your definition of self.

I'm a musician.  I have been one my whole life.  My classmates from Huron School District in New Boston, Michigan will tell you that I would often sing loudly in my very bad voice.  They would also probably tell you that my song preferences were ancient.  I grew up listening to Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, ect.

Then when Junior High came along, I joined up with the band.  I started playing my trumpet in fourth grade, and continued my dedication to my craft through High School.  (Horn playing started in eighth grade)
After High School I joined the Michigan Marching Band and fulfilled one of my dreams from childhood.

Why am I writing all this?  Each step of my life, I have been a member of a great group of people; a family if you will.  This family gave me a purpose and filled in my heart a happiness and feeling of fulfillment that saw me through my undergraduate education.  Now for the first time, I am disbanded.  (Bad pun I know)
I find myself without a purpose, without that which has defined me for so long.  I play the music but the music does not build a sense of purpose, but one of reflection and remembrance.  It was not the music that I loved (though love it I did).   It was the family.

My sister and I recently spoke about the differences in our educations.  I was always a part of a large group, from the Boy Scouts, to the band, to the tech crew family.  This group provided an excellent support structure.  My sister moved from school to school never really being a part of a large group.  This led her to be more daring, but also more shy in ways.  She is not afraid to go to travel far and wide and leave her friends behind, while I struggle to maintain old friendships while expanding my support base.

Now I am going away for the first time to a new city to live.  I am going to have to build a new support structure, and I wonder if I should.  Should I allow a new definition to cover me, or should I break from all definitions.  I choose to ignore the concept of a definition and just be what I have always been.  Horn player, Eagle Scout, Lighting Designer, all these titles are simply extension of who I already was.  Myself.

We are a society of complex individuals.  We must reject the labels we are stamped with, while enriching that which makes us who we are.

This is the purpose of this blog.  To break the limits of my identity and of society.