Dispositional Blog #2: Compassion

One of my best friends and biggest allies is one of my former teachers.

Jennifer Morris, former assistant show choir director at my high school, has made a huge difference in my life.  She has been there for me both in music and in life...I've called her late at night in tears and early in the morning bursting with good news.  It would probably take more than my fingers and toes to count the number of times my phone calls have woken her up (oops).

Our bond began one night at a show choir competition.  I was singing a solo, my mic stopped working, and she kicked off her high heels, ran up the aisle, and handed me a different mic.  After the fact, she was chewed out by our head director.  I cried after the show that night...for hours.  It didn't help matters that we suffered our only loss of my high school career that night to our biggest rivals.  A couple days later I went into her office to thank her for switching my mic.  Ever since that conversation, there's never been a doubt in my mind that she would be there for me when I needed her most.

Our friendship grew from a professional teacher-student relationship to one of mature adults.  We talk about real issues.  This past summer, when I got into a substantial fight with one of my parents, I called her and said "J-Mo, I'm coming over," and sat on her couch for three hours and talked it out.  She shares my passion for working with children with special needs (in fact, we both worked at the same case management and therapy center over the summer); we often swap stories of "our kids."  When I need musical advice, I call her first.  She helped me decide which college to go to.  We banter back and forth about love gone awry at Starbucks quite regularly.  She hooks me up with performance opportunities.  Basically, this woman rocks.

I think that the reason we're such good friends is that we're very similar.  She tells me stories from college and the insecurities she experienced about her music career and I can completely relate to many of them.  She's already been through everything I'm going through now, and her knowledge and support is invaluable.  There have been a few days where her encouragement was truly the only thing that kept me going.  She never tells me that I'm incapable of things...She'll be very honest about whether they're realistic or not, but is always encouraging of the things that I'm passionate about.