I've Hurt My Arm Again

I spent a few glorious weeks at the piano in my practice room with Brahms' Rhapsody in Gm. The piece is so powerful, so passionate, so velvety, so dark. It gave me shivers to play it.

Then the discomfort started. I stopped playing. I told my teacher about it. We tried to work on ways to help me play without hurting myself, but I think the damage is already done. At least for now. I've hardly played in the past two weeks, and my left arm/wrist/hand/shoulder still hurts, even when I'm not doing anything with it. I don't know what to do. It fills me with such deep sadness to think that I'm losing (again) the one thing which I truly enjoy doing. I don't like most of my classes at school. Work is work. But the piano is ME.

I'm going to my lesson in an hour. I think I need to tell my teacher I need to switch to a different piece. I love the Brahms, but it scares me now. It's too much for me. Bartok, maybe. I hope I have enough time.