When I turned sixteen, I started practicing and practicing until my hands were numb to the point where I had to look down to make sure they were still hanging on there. On the days where I didn't practice as much, I disappointed myself and the next day, I was right back to where I started the day before, working thrice as hard.

For some time, it seemed like I was getting somewhere. But after more time, I started to dwindle down because no one believed in me - not even my own mother. Looking back, I'm not sure why I ever listened to her in the first place. All she was good for was getting drunk off of tequila and sleeping with men younger than me. She even went for my best friend at some point, I remember him telling me, which as soon as I heard the words come out, gave me even more of a reason to go back to making him proud.

You see, I'm in love with my best friend, and like any love story, he doesn't know and it's unrequited. And it wouldn't ever work out anyway because even if it did for some time, they always break up and hate each other in the long run so I guess it's for the better that we wouldn't work out.

When I was nineteen, I got into one of my dream schools. But it wasn't for the degree that I wanted. But I can swear to anyone that once I read "We are pleased to inform you..." I went right to my room and started packing. I was finally going to get my chance to get the hell out of this god-forsaken town. When I think of my town, I think of the quote that goes, "I live in a town everyone claims to hate... yet they never seem to leave," because that's exactly how my town is; full of wannabes that try to leave but always end up coming back because they aren't ready and won't be ready for the real world, ever. So, I suppose I can understand why people always thought that I wouldn't be the first one to make it out alive.

It was my twenty-first birthday when I received the phone call from my brother that told me that he had just found out that he was in stage three of testicular cancer. Even after he told me what the survival rate was and how soon he would have to start taking chemotherapy to make his chances of survival go up, I still cried on the phone with him for what seemed like hours. But looking back on that phone call, it was only twenty-three minutes and seventeen seconds. But it was the longest twenty-three minutes and seventeen seconds of my life.

A week after I found out about my brothers cancer, I got the second most important call of my life. It was the Juilliard School. When they told me they took me off the wait list, my heart almost dropped. But it went right up to speed when they told me they took me off of it because I would be starting school there for the spring semester. The countdown begun – twenty-seven days until I got to move in.

When I got there, it was tough, I won't bullsh.t anything. I cried myself to sleep for the first two weeks because I had no friends and my brother wasn't looking good. My best friend was hours away and we barely talked - but when we did, he always made sure to tell me that he believed in me and to not forget about him when I became famous, which I laughed at immediately. But my dads words came into my head one night when I was really missing him when he once told me "Be strong, Spence, you are the only hope this town has. Your talent, it exceeds every single person in this family, town, and even in the towns over. You can do this." He said that to me three days before he died of testicular cancer.

After years of performing on the streets, in front of audiences, and in front of random people, I got the most important call of my life. All stories have downsides. On March 23, after fighting three years, my brother died in the hospital that he was put into after we realized he wouldn't make it much longer than two years. He left me a letter saying, "Spence... Be good. Do good. Prove them all wrong. I love you." It was written in his messy writing from his tiredness, but I will savor that letter forever.

Finally the day came where I got that call from a recording agent, telling me he wanted to sign me. He told me he loved my music and he wanted to hear me sing. After some convincing, I sang "Skinny Love" by Bon Iver, but Birdies version for him. I don't think anyone has ever been as excited to hear my voice before that man had been that day.

I'm twenty-nine years old now, engaged to my best friend, living in New York, still recording music, and forever making sure people know about my father and my brother. But today I'm visiting little Florida, Massachusetts after ten and a half years of being gone and I can't help but think, we all come back, even if it's just to say goodbye.