(500) Days of Philadelphia

DAY (500): 10 December 2009. 7:59 pm.

The Philadelphia Orchestra's on the TV. You never get to see live broadcasts of the legendary ensemble where I live in Louisville, Colorado. I watch the audience find their velvet seats along the stage, already full of musicians, in Philadelphia's magnificent Verizon Hall.

There's a knock at my dressing room door and I turn away from the TV monitor. I give my bow one last swipe of rosin. I tuck a 300 year-old Stradivarius under my arm. I breathe.

For the past year and a half, I've known this day would come.

I'll never be able to go back to what I was. Now I go foward with a different confidence, one I hope will take me from this place I never thought I'd reach, to distant dreams I have yet to imagine.