Maya Shankar

So I was an aspiring concert violinist.

When I was young, I was studying at Juilliard under Itzhak Perlman.

My big dreams were coming true.

I was soloing with orchestras and everything was looking bright.

And then I had my own slight change of plans when I overstretched my finger on a single note and had a career ending injury.

And I remember in that moment, Mike, not just grieving the loss of the instrument, but also the loss of myself on this more fundamental level.

Fast forward a couple decades after almost six or seven years of trying to start a family, my husband and I were unsuccessful.

We had to deal with

many obstacles and disappointments and heartbreaks and pregnancy losses with our surrogate.

And it's been a really challenging experience to navigate that.

And again, I felt like I wasn't just grieving the pregnancy losses.

I was grieving the loss of this future identity that I had for so long aspired to hold, which was mom.

And what I've learned from these experiences really only in hindsight is that it can be more stabilizing to define yourself

not simply by what you do, but by why you do those things or why you have even the dreams you have.

So what do I mean by that?

Let's take the violin, for example.

I asked myself, well, what was it that I loved about the violin?

Human connection was at its core.

I loved that music was a vehicle for me to build

deep emotional connections with people, whether it was my fellow musicians or people in the audience.