Strings Attached: A Memoir on Education and Identity

I used to think education was just about classrooms. Desks in neat rows, pencils on paper, teachers talking while students tried to stay awake. I thought it lived in textbooks and grades, in report cards and rules. But life taught me that education isn’t always that clean. Sometimes, it looks like survival. Sometimes, it sounds like music. And sometimes, it feels like silence when you're hurting and no one notices. 

I was born in Louisiana, but I moved to Houston when I was five. I don’t remember much about the move itself, just that it felt like the first of many shifts I would have to face in life. Nothing ever stayed still for long. My family was torn apart more than once. I lived through two divorces. I witnessed violence. I survived abuse. And for a long time, I carried those experiences like invisible weights, heavy and unspoken. 

Mental health was never an open conversation in my world. Being Black, I often felt that emotions were meant to be hidden. Vulnerability wasn’t safe. Depression and anxiety didn’t have names in my house. They were just quiet shadows that followed me from room to room. And because no one taught me how to name them, I was forced to figure out how to live with them on my own. 

But then came music. 

Anthony Middle School wasn’t supposed to be special. It was just another stop in my education, another building with bell schedules and crowded hallways. But inside that building was Ms. Schess. She was my orchestra teacher, and without knowing it, she gave me the first real sense of direction I’d ever felt. She taught me how to hold an instrument, how to read music, how to find rhythm when everything else in my life felt unstable. 

It wasn’t just about playing the right notes. She gave me something sacred: a space to breathe. A place to feel without explaining. Her kindness, her patience, the way she believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself — it changed me. Because of her, I joined the Houston Youth Symphony. I started to see music not as a class, but as a lifeline. It became my voice when I couldn’t speak. It gave me structure when everything else around me was falling apart. 

Ms. Schess may never know the full impact she had on my life. To her, maybe she was just doing her job. But to me, she opened a door I didn’t know existed. Through her, I learned to see beauty in patterns, to understand the way small pieces fit into something greater. Music taught me patience and discipline. It taught me how to listen — not just to sound, but to people, to emotion, to myself. 

Education didn’t just happen in the classroom. It happened in every quiet night I spent trying to understand who I was. In every decision I had to make without guidance. In every moment I had to carry myself through pain and come out a little stronger. It happened in the melodies I practiced over and over until they finally sounded like something true.

All of these lessons — the formal ones from teachers and the unspoken ones from life — shaped the person I am today. I am not just a student. I am a survivor. I am a listener. I am a creator. I’ve learned to see the world with empathy, to move through it with grace, and to build a life where there is room for both pain and beauty. 

Education gave me more than knowledge. It gave me identity. It gave me strength. It gave me a way forward.