Thoughts...

     I started college a little early, while my peers were thinking of graduating High school I was enrolling in my first semester at Valencia Community College. From the start of Kindergarten your asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? Again every year same question and every year I had a different answer. It generally starts off as you wanting to following in the footsteps of a parental unit, in my case my Mother, a nurse. I remember one day marching class to class with my sash stating RN. As the years went by my life's goal changed into a psychologist. Even when I took the Myers Briggs test, psychologist was high on the list, and all the other jobs had one thing in common. Helping others! It took 2 semesters for me to change that major. One of the Instructors for my psychology course work, said, "Ashley, you don't want this, you want to help everyone and not everyone really wants help." She was right, my naive mind could not grasp the fact that I couldn't help and cure all or that not everyone wanted my help. They may want drugs, prescribe me this and that and a little extra on the side please. Especially this day in age, our body's are a chemical machine. If you feel weak feed it this, if you don't feel euphoric have a dose of that. The main thing I feared after this revelation was that I could never leave work at work, and my home life separate. So, in a split second I lost my way. My path was no longer clearly paved for me.

     It didn't take long for me to find the coffee stand on campus and naturally surrounding the coffee stand were the hippies of 2000. Next to the coffee stand, where I would grab my triple shot coffee and or frappiccino and on a really naughty day my frozen frappiccino was mixed with peanut butter and chocolate. This was my Drug, and the man/guitarist behind the counter my supplier, the one all your parents tell you to fear...come join us, he says. He was our cult leader...There was a large platform overlooking the ground floor. On a busy day there would always be at least six to twelve guitarist hanging around, strumming a tune, playing in tune along with everyone. I started hanging out here, like cheers where everyone knew my name. I was the vibrant happy girl with her baby Taylor guitar. Or I brought my full bodied Takamine with all the stickers, my trademark look! Oh how I miss that guitar. My Taylor had the quality of any full Taylor brand guitar and yet was cute and small, easily transportable and my sticker coated Takamine is now hanging in some tattoo shop. 

     My world opened up there on that platform. Men, woman of all ages, levels of talent. I will never forget playing "Hotel California" by the Eagles, it was about ten guitarist, including myself. It was a favorite around there so I quickly picked up the notes. Watching those who could master the lead and then those who fell in my category of backup. The song begins with a lead, performed by our cult leader our drug supplier, we bang on the base of our guitar until our cue..." On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair" It was truly magic in those moments..."There she stood in the doorway, I heard the mission bells. I was thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell." I sang and everyone cheered, so even when it was a couple of us and I was the only one who was singing I received praise...this became my outlet. One of the best days was with this guy, he played so well and had a beautiful, absolutely amazing guitar. Some brand no one had heard of and yet he made a sound all his own. Him and I sat together and he started playing a song from Tonic...I knew instantly what he was speaking to me because when him and I played together it just kinda flowed so when the chorus kicked in I knew it was my cue, "And I said, what about breakfast at Tiffany's?? She said, I think I remember the film? And as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it And I said, Well, that's the one thing we've got" sweet sweet melody, nothing better than gathering a crowd.

     Anyways, it wasn't long after that before I quite school although, I just simply did not know enough about life, to know what I wanted to do with it. For some people, it takes life experiences to really see not what you want to do but what will give you fulfillment in life. That was always my ultimate goal.