i can't sleep
and when i do manage to fall asleep i can't wake up
i'm scared I don't know what I'm doing with my life it feels like I'm just careening towards an eternity of something I'll severely dislike
and I don't know if I'm ready for this
I know it doesn't help to think like this, but my mind keeps asking
what if I had chosen to study music first
what if I just stop everything this second and audition for the music program as a vocalist, I hardly remember enough piano any more
accounting with numbers and files and making sure everything's sorted right just seems like a horrible life to me
and I know, i'm working as an accountant's assistant
like yeah I have fun doing stupid small things with stamps and stuffing and sealing envelopes but
the sorting and the endless journal entries and making sure we've got everybody paid and everyone's paid us
i want to be able to devote time to music
I think I've accepted that my parents will never agree to a formal school music education as a career, but I do want to be able to perform for people
The Christmas concert was so great and it was absolutely wonderful being able to sing solo for an audience, I haven't done that in five years
but I don't know, it just makes me so much more confused - yeah I like singing, but the best part for me is seeing an audience and seeing my voice make them smile - I get to see that I've done something to lift their spirits
And as much as I love everyone here, I don't get those same subtle hints
the person on the left, disinterested during the piano introduction, raises his eyebrows as I start singing
the girl beside him slightly lifts the corner of her mouth
a head tilts
arms are uncrossed
it's just those things that happened and
it just felt so good and perfect and right
like, I want to be on stage in front of people
and as great as it is with text, I don't get the same nonverbal cues that "Yes, I enjoyed this music"
I'm sorry I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate you all, you're all great and I do love you and thank you for actually listening to me sing Silent Night, it's just
EVEN THAT was really fun to make and even though it was thrown together in thirty minutes, it was still fun to put some effort into putting variations into each verse and singing the lines and playing along to myself
and then I go to my job
where I enter things on a computer
or file stuff away in boxes
and nothing could feel any more opposite
it's cold, clinical
we don't even deal with fun numbers, we just deal in documents and backups of documents
and the best part about being on stage - the knowledge that I've done something small to make a stranger smile, or just feel alive - that sort of nonverbal communication that goes on between performer and audience - there is no element of that in the office
it's just do your work, help the company make money
and in the future, if you're a Good Employee that helped us make lots of money and has been with us for a while, we'll maybe give you a bit more money
and I just don't know what to do any more, I'm regretting not taking the risk and seeing if I could actually make it as a musician
because this future right now scares me. i'm less anxious about my exam than i am about having to show up for work the rest of the week.
normally when i'm feeling this anxious i just listen to music but now it's sort of a mocking reminder of the untraveled road - what if I could have become good enough to make people feel the way this music makes me feel?
and it just sort of sours everything for me
i'm sorry if you bothered to read through all this