Running Away

Today I feel like giving up. Packing my bags full of Pringles and Caramel DeLites (and several large canisters of Ben & Jerry's) and fleeing to the closest underground couch/entertainment center. Said caché would ideally look bizarrely like my parents' darkened basement, in which I hid during the bulk of my first real depression. Dark, because it's easiest to forget one's shortcomings (or all of the self) in the dark- especially with a marathon of entertaining movies dancing across a very large screen.

I feel like I should hide with the cheapest of comfort snacks and ignore everything on my impending to-do list. Over time I'd give up on singing, and focus instead on critiquing other singers. I'd be especially good at pointing out tiny flaws in the work of established performers.

I'd have to leave the Boy in New York, cause that man is Goin' Places(!) and I'd probably just deter him with all my self-hiding in the dark. I'd miss him so terribly that my stomach would perpetually ache, but I'd work hard to convince myself that he deserved so much better than a little girl who was afraid to try because she might fail.

The truth is that I am terrified. I'm frustratingly distracted from this fact by my ridiculous workload, but still I cannot really hide from it. I have gotten about as far as sheer talent will ever get me, and to make it any further will require work, more than ever before. More honesty. More emotional risk-taking. How could I not be terrified?

One day I feel as though I can't but open my mouth before everyone wants to tell me how great I sound (one of the perks of singing solo in church is that one often has an extremely willing and grateful audience) and the next I'm face to face with the stark reality that a pretty sound does not an opera singer make. And what is pretty to Rebecca at church is not exactly a classical music standard.

I'm constantly re-evaluating my self-worth- and what good does that do?? Surely I ought to be able to accept criticism, to seek it out even, without jeopardizing whole of my personhood (or artist-hood) in the process. How will I ever grow? It's nonproductive and exceptionally painful to invest so much of my self worth every time I sing. I'm not so stupid so as to reveal both my sense of self and my feelings on the critical chopping-block. So what's a smart, extra-sensitive performer to do? Well, I protect myself, of course! I withhold my feelings from my performance, relegating my singing to 'nice' but lacking in soul (the ingredient most necessary to ethereal artistry).

And since I've assigned my day's self-worth on a performance I wasn't emotionally invested in, I also feel like a very large, rather smelly pile of crap.

Not very productive.

Three years old

There's nothing like catching yourself mid-temper tantrum; it's a jolt of humility that I would have preferred to avoid on this gloomy Wednesday, as my mind immediately published an image of me as a three-year-old throwing herself on the floor.

This entry is my best effort to curb the pity party I was just hosting for myself on the back of the crosstown bus. I really hope it works. Lots of things are piling-up against me today, like my gross cold which seems to have stolen my voice. Or my current technique-ennui, which (exacerbated by the cold) has swallowed my confidence whole. Or my lunch 'hour' wasted at the worst bank in the world (I'm looking at you, HSBC) with nothing to show for it but anger.

But mostly I'm upset because that man- the sweet one who makes me coffee in the mornings and has the most wonderful laugh in all the world- left this morning for Virginia for a few days. I know I ought to be crazily happy for and proud of him, after all- he's performing with an orchestra and getting paid(!) Truth is, I'm insanely proud of him, and I hope he has an amazing time, and I'm sure all the little old ladies will throw him roses (he has a talent for attracting octogenarian fans), and i want him to have an amazing and inspiring time, and I wish he didn't have to go.

Or that I could go, too.

I miss him, and in what feels like a terribly selfish way. I don't want to keep drudger-ing on to school and work, seeing that bills are paid, taking out the trash, without the reward of time with him when day is done. I don't remember how life was possible before I joined this relationship, but I assure you there was less laughter.

I know this will pass, as all things do, but I wish it would pass a little more expediently.