Se la vie en Rose

Today marks the end of an era.

I sold my piano today.

I'm blogging about it because it affected me more than I thought it would.

I don't know what it was about seeing it strapped into someone else's trailer, but that was the moment when it "felt" like I was losing something. It had been carried onto the trailer, money changed hands, and I looked at it and realized it was no longer mine.

I know I'm far too sentimental about "physical objects" anyway, but this felt different. My parents purchased the piano thirty years ago - when I was five. It sat in the living room for a couple years before we moved to Highland. After a couple years there, when I was about 9 or 10, I heard some beautiful piano music, which spurred a desire in me to be able to do that as well. So I sat down and started picking out tunes to things and virtually taught myself to play. I didn't know it then, but I wasn't just learning to play the piano, I was beginning a relationship that would last for the next 25 years. (Only slightly less time than my relationships with my family and one close friend!)

I don't know why it is that I felt she had taken on a personality of her own. Maybe it was that she seemed to respond so well to my touch, whether gentle and light, or brutally heavy. It felt like she just loved to be played. Or maybe it was just that when I was playing, I could be myself. I wasn't very good, but she didn't seem to mind. For a fat little kid with virtually no friends and even less self-esteem, it meant the world to me that, in those moments, I could just be myself. When I played the piano I could be accurate or "fumbly" and she didn't care. She let me figure things out and was patient with me when a piece was particularly challenging. She didn't rush me or make me feel like something was way too advanced for me - which was usually the case! I could just be myself around her and that was good enough. I don't think she'll ever know how much that meant to me.

She's going to a good home where she will be lovingly played and most of all - appreciated. That's what I wanted for her, that another family or owner would see her value and appreciate her the way I do. I feel that's what she's getting. Her new family has young children who are learning to play, about the age I was when I started, so I know that she is perfect for them, because she was perfect for me.

It's strange, in a way, that we are both starting a new journey. We're both moving off to new places and will be "meeting" new people. I only realized, just now, that I am leaving with a greater sense of what she gave me so many years ago - the realization that it's okay to be me. I can just be myself and that's good enough. It's taken me a long time to learn that lesson, but she was with me through it all.

I know I'm stupid for feeling this way, but she holds a special place in my heart and I will miss her.

Her name was Rose.