In February of 2012 I played the cello for the first time. My older sister played violin and I wanted to be in an orchestra with her. Literally the only reason I chose cello was the fact that you have to sit down to play it. I for sure didn’t want to stand, so playing cello became my thing. When I started playing it sounded like, as my mom lovingly put it, a whale dying. It took a while to sound less horrible, but I fell in love with it and finally got to join an orchestra at school. I quickly became the best in my middle school and continued that into high school. I was auditioning for honors orchestras and becoming the principal cellist in all of them. It was extremely rewarding, but took up all of my time. Throughout my orchestra years I was also a varsity cross country and track runner. There weren’t enough hours in the day to go to running practice and meets, concerts and private cello lessons, and do all of my homework. The stress was getting to me and I had to quit one.I made the difficult decision to drop out of orchestra after my sophomore year of high school. While I worried it would be the end of cello, I had to do it. Thankfully it wasn’t. I went on to win two state championships in cross country while at the same time playing cello at countless weddings. I thought quitting orchestra would mean quitting playing cello, but it only made me fall in love with it more. I was playing what I wanted when I wanted, and truly enjoying the art.