Worst Cold Ever

I'm still sick! I can't even believe it! It has been over a week now. I can't ever remember having a cold that lasted this long. I'm still miserable and my temperature is all over the place. I start to feel better one day and then am back to miserable the very next day. I'm going to head to the doctor if it isn't gone by the end of the week. I have no time for this. I need to be practicing and rehearsing and performing not coughing and sneezing and being extraordinarily unattractive. I have been taking some downtime today to heal and to catch up in the hours of television being stored in my dvr. I have also watched a ridiculous amount of Netflix I the last few weeks. I have been mildly productive. I think I found the piece of music that I've been waiting for to finish my recital program. And I joined YAP Tracker. And I started eating healthier. I finished City of Bones and started reading Water for Elephants today. I really need to finish it so I can see the movie. I'm a huge Reese Witherspoon fan! I'm prattling now...so I'll stop.

Colorado, Funeral and Illness

I've been away so soon after starting. Never fear! I've not given up! It has just been an extremely busy couple of weekends. Two weekends ago, Adrian and I went to Boulder to visit my friend Kenny. I had a great weekend of shopping, I got a tattoo and I played games in my very first arcade. It was a lot of fun. Towards the end of my trip my mother called to tell me that my grandfather had passed away. He had been on hospice for a little while so we weren't totally shocked but it still hurt a lot. My grandfather asked me to sing at his funeral before he died and so I would. I went back to school for a few days and even had a choir concert before heading back to Aberdeen for the funeral. It was such a strange thing. I hadn't seen most of my family for almost three years and there they all were. With the exception of two cousins, my mom's six brothers and sisters and all of their families showed up. My grandfather wanted me to sing two songs at his funeral. "One Day at a Time" and "The Lord's Prayer". It was very hard for me. I barely got through the whole thing without falling apart. After I finished singing I sat in my chair and sobbed for a very long time. It was extremely unlike me. I try to keep my emotions in check for the most part because I find that they mostly get in the way. But I just couldn't. Not this time. It hurt too much.

Now that I'm back at school and work, I feel a little numb. It doesn't really help that I have the worst cold. I can't breathe and I feel absolutely miserable. The worst part is that I can't sing or hear very well. I have so much music to learn and its so inconvenient. But that aside, I'm still reeling from my grandfather's funeral. It just hasn't totally hit me that I'm never going to see him again. Even at the funeral I kept expecting to see him at any moment. It makes me feel so awful that I had only seen him once in the last two years. I saw him in November over Veterans Day and that was it. It didn't even occur to me that it would be the last chance I had to talk to him. Had I known, I would have asked him so many questions.

Burying grandpa was the first time that I wished that I believed in God. Thinking about him just laying there forever makes me saddest of all. I know that its how it works and that he served his purpose in life but I wish for more for him. In the face of his passing, I really wish there were a heaven for him to go to. He wouldn't be in pain. He would be happy and with other relatives that we've had pass away. He would smile and laugh and complain about young people these days. Hopefully, I'm wrong and he can have these things. I've never wanted to be wrong so much.

I'm trying now just to get back to normal. I go back to work tomorrow and went to class today. I'm taking lots of medicine to try and kick this cold as soon as possible. If I can get back into singing, I really think it will help me deal with my feelings. I'm trying to stay motivated when all I want to do is lay on my couch and never leave my house. I'm fighting it. I've come so far on my path to finding peace and happiness that I don't want to take steps backward. So I'm going to try to stay positive and take things one day at a time. Its the last advice that I got from my grandpa. So I'm going to take it.

Choir Retreat

Today marked the beginning of my last choir retreat at USD. It was very bittersweet. I'm glad to be ending this part of my life, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to miss it. I've made a lot of fantastic memories at this university. Some of the best ones involve this choir. So are some of the worst...but that's not what this is about. This is about the good ones.

When I first moved to Vermillion I didn't really know anybody. So I spend the majority of the month before school started alone. I was fine with it. I had to set up the house and get everything going. I started a job at the alumni foundation call center. Auditioning for the choir was pretty much the first thing that I ever did on campus at USD. When I went back that night to check the list, I wasn't really expecting to get in. I didn't have very high hopes about it and was planning to be happy in the large group choir. When I got to the fine arts center I ran into my roommate Adrian. At the time I hadn't seen him in about 4 years and thought that he was living the charmed life in New York. Turns out that he had changed his mind about his future goals and come back to Vermillion to start something new. We exchanged an awkward hug and went our own separate ways after finding out that we had both made it into the Chamber Singers. Now he's my best friend and I can't imagine life without him. Chamber Singers brought other best friends too. The majority of the people that I hang out with on a daily basis come from this choir. It's been such a ride.

At the beginning of each semester, after all of the new members are chosen, the choir has a retreat. We learn a large percentage of our music at these retreats which makes the rest of the semester a lot easier. Throughout the retreat we play a lot of "getting to know you" games and bond a lot. On the first evening of the retreat we sit in a circle and talk about our commitments to the choir. Its a great time for us. We really learn things about each other during this time. It can be a very emotional and inspiring experience. It really kicks the year off to a great start. We do it again in the spring semester and this year we talked about what our favorite moments of the previous semester were and what we are looking forward to in the current semester. Mostly people were looking forward to our spring tour. This year we're going to the Denver area and coming back through Rapid City. I'm also excited about this. The tour is also a big thing for us. Everything we do all year is leading up to that one week over spring break. We get trapped on a bus for a week with each other and we learn all kinds of things about each other that we didn't necessarily want to know. But it's all part of the experience so I appreciate those moments as well.

Day one of retreat was about 8 hours long. It has reminded me that I have a long ways to go to get into the kind of shape I need to be in to sing these concerts that we have coming up. So much work goes into each and every note and we still have a longs ways to go before it is something that comes naturally to me. Singing for this long after a long winter break was a very exhausting thing. And we start back up bright and early tomorrow morning. Despite all of the stress and frustration that goes into this, it is such a fulfilling experience to make beautiful music with a group of people. That kind of team effort is just something you can't find in any other profession. It is truly a beautiful feeling that I hope to have for many years to come. I know it won't always be in this choir with this group of people. But part of what makes it great is coming together with new people to make completely new music that can't be mimicked by any other group. It sounds corny, but it's like being our own snowflake. Unique and special.

Bar Time

Over the last couple of weeks, I've found myself enjoying some time in alcohol distributing establishments. I don't frequent these places on a regular basis because I typically find myself too busy and I'm not a big fan of crowds. Thanks to my new happy feelings, socializing has all new appeal. At least it did until this past Friday. Friday has turned me into an indoor cat for a long while to come.

All of my friends are making their way back to Vermillion for the beginning of a new semester. In these times, it seems only appropriate to celebrate. Friday seemed like the perfect day. I didn't have to work until 2 on Saturday so I'd have plenty of time to recover if it was needed. I got a new smoothie maker for myself for Christmas and I put it to use make coffee, Kahlua, and Bailey's smoothies. They were fantastic! Adrian even liked them and he doesn't like coffee. So after two pitchers of this, I decided to switch to my typical drug of choice in the form of wine. We'd had white wine with dinner and then I continued the trend and had a bottle of red while I was getting ready to go. Needless to say, this was already far too much alcohol for me. I'm not a regular drinker and this was only supposed to be a little light pre-gaming before bar time. I was feeling great when we left and headed to $.50 taps. While at the first bar, I thought it appropriate to consume 5 beers and 2 shots. Now I have officially reached way too much liquor for me. Another bar and 4 more shots later and I'm on liquor overload. If there was a hazard alarm...it would have been going off like crazy. I'd continue to tell you what happened, but I don't remember. I remember getting to the second bar and then the next thing I knew, I woke up in my bed wearing skinny jeans and no shirt. One of the lenses was missing from my glasses and I felt absolutely awful. My friends tell me that after we closed the 2nd bar, we went to a hot dog place across the street where I proceeded to lose my dignity in front of everyone. I'm absolutely mortified by this information. I have prided myself on my ability to not vomit after drinking. I pride myself more on not vomiting in front of people ever. All good things must come to an end.

I spent all day yesterday miserable. I called in sick to work for the first time ever because of drinking. I laid on my couch and died all day. I couldn't even keep crackers and water down. I started running a fever and had chills. All of the days activities have led me back to a life of being a recluse for a while. I clearly don't drink often enough to know my limits and I'd rather not find out the hard way again. So after I start being able to smell alcohol without gagging again, I plan to pace myself more. As I'm still feeling slightly like death, I don't see alcohol in my future for a good long while. Its not for everyone and this weekend has proven that it might not be for me. Oh bar time...I shall not miss you.

Keep the good times rolling

As my holiday vacation from school draws to a close, I find myself slightly sad about it. Usually I'm antsy and ready to go back to school. This time is different. I've been enjoying my free time and am not quite ready to let it go. I feel like I've really found some semblance of peace lately. I anticipate my return to academia ruining that peace.

Today is a perfect example. I woke up around 10:30 and read a book for a while. I didn't feel rushed or hurried. I had no place to be. I threw in a load of laundry and ran into my roommate. Adrian has been out of town with his family for almost a week and it's been great to have him back. We decided a few days ago that we were going to spend today together. He cooked lunch while I took a shower and then we sat down and caught up. Again, no hurry, no need for anxiety. It was a simple, laid back meal together. Adrian wanted to go to Sioux Falls and do some shopping so we loaded up the car and took a 45 minute jaunt to the biggest city in South Dakota. At a whopping population of 153,888 people, Sioux Falls is the closest thing we have to a big city. People from actual large cities in neighboring states are less than impressed but...we do what we can.

After we got there we shopped around spent some money and had yummy dinner. We took one last wander around the mall before we headed home at about 6:30. Adrian is a nerd and bought the Mortal Kombat sound track. We listened to it until I told him it was turning me on and then magically it stopped. I have these subtle ways of getting what I want....be jealous. We got home, I made a smoothie, he made hummus (blegh!), and we watched Jeopardy and Desperate Housewives for a few hours while playing a board game. I cleaned up the kitchen, took out the trash, and read my book some more. I had to stop in the middle of my book to think of the stress free day that I had just had. Thinking on it, it's actually quite bizarre for me. I laughed more than I can ever remember and I had a genuinely great time. Most people would be grateful. I find myself suppressing suspicion. When things go well for a little while, I always wait for the bad. I'm very much hoping the bad is a long ways off and that I can keep this good feeling for a while, but I'm always prepared for a storm of awful. It's pessimistic. I hate thinking of myself a pessimist but...I know the truth.

Despite my niggling worries about the days to come, I'm going to try to keep the happiness I've been feeling going. My return to school, work, and rehearsal will most certainly throw up some obstacles on my road to consistent happiness, but that's the nature of the beast. I'm going to try not to let those obstacles destroy this new momentum I have going. Only time will tell, but I have a good feeling everything will be okay.

Insomnia Rots Your Brain

On occasion I have problems sleeping. When this happens I end up staying up all night watching TV. I think this exactly what people tell you not to do when you have problems sleeping... Anyway! On this particular evening I'm watching America's Court with Judge Ross on Netflix. This has come about because I ran out of episodes of Pawn Stars and Storage Wars. The premise of the show is that people with absolutely ridiculous, immature lifestyles bring their petty problems onto a televised court show to get their five minutes of trashy fame. For some reason, I find this incredibly addictive. Boss Ross, as he calls himself, is the iron fist of the law and reviews these bizarre situations for a just ruling. The one I'm watching right now involves a woman who went to a speed dating company because she's too vapid and nutty to find a date on her own. While she was there, she decided to approach one of the speed daters outside of the parameters of the speed dating service. When she did this, the speed dater lost his marbles and bit her. Now she's suing the speed dating company for her medical bills. The representative for the speed dating company maintains that it isn't his fault she violated his contract and got bitten. This situation seems cut and dry to me and yet there is a 15 minute argument about it before the ruling is made in the most obvious way. Boss Ross says that she can't sue the speed dating company and that she needs to sue the man who bit her. As if this is rocket science. And then she has the nerve to look shocked as though it isn't the biters fault that he bit her. At the end, she'll say that she's learned never to speed date....and that's it. All she took out of that situation is not to speed date. And that thought process is exactly why she'll never find a date.

The next case is about a chicken rancher who treats his chickens like family. He is suing an animal rights activist who came to his ranch and stole four of his chickens. The activist has actually posted on her website that she was going to have a chicken redemption ceremony at this man's ranch. So he has proof that this woman at least intended to do something involving his beloved chickens. The woman claims that she was attending a conference at the time that the chickens were stolen and couldn't possibly have stolen the chickens. She says that she shouldn't be responsible for what people did in response to the information on her website. Because they can't actually prove that it was the activist who stole the chickens, the case will be thrown out. Before this can happen though, Boss Ross must weigh his options. He has to give the reasons why the activists is guilty and then come back full circle to why the case has no legs to stand on. All of this is followed up by dramatic music that makes you feel like justice has been served.

The idea of so many innocent souls being served in a court of law really puts my mind at ease and will make it a little bit easier to drift off into a relaxed sleep. Boss Ross is the man. He is keeping the dirt off of the street and making such a deep impact as a judge. He begins each episode with a personal note that all he wants is to see wrongs righted. In the midst of every case, there are many illegal acts admitted that I'm sure they don't answer for. Illegal drugs, child molestation, drunk driving, abuse, child neglect...none of these wrongs get righted by Boss Ross. These people walk out of the court room after their cases and never atone for their sleazy lives and unlawful actions. My cat, Lola, is bored to tears and has passed out in response. I can't take my eyes off of Boss Ross. He is one for the books. Any judge could only aspire to be as good as the Honorable Judge Ross.

Roommates

When you're a senior in high school and you're thinking about college, you always hope that you don't end up with the story about an insane roommate. We all know somebody who came home the first Christmas and had nightmarish stories about their psychotic roommate. I've been blessed in the roommate department. I've had roommates that will be my friends for the rest of my life. Also, I have been cursed. Twice.

When I moved onto campus as an 18 year old, I had already corresponded with my roommate and was confident that we were going to have a very successful freshman year together. For the sake of self-preservation, we'll say her name is Kayley. Kayley was quirky and funny and we hung out quite a bit in the first few weeks of school. We were both music majors so we had a lot of classes together and everything was going well. As I started to make other friends, I noticed that Kayley didn't like to leave the dorm that often. I didn't have a problem with that because I was definitely enjoying going out and having fun. I was sad the first few times that she chose to be alone over hanging out but I figured that some people just need more "me" time than others. I knew she had made a few other friends but I very rarely saw her with them. It got to the point that I only saw her right before I went to bed at night. She went home for the weekend around midterm and came back with a boyfriend. His name was Jamie and he seemed very nice. He was in the military and he made her light up. I was happy for her. He wasn't around too much because he wasn't from the area. Around this time, Kayley started to wear a lot of black. She died her hair and stopped smiling. It kind of came out of nowhere. She used to be filled with laughter and color and suddenly she had done a complete brain swap. She became really hard to be around and seemed to develop some hostility towards me. Her boyfriend started to come to town more often and they would just spend the entire time in our room. It got to the point of awkward that I would sleep somewhere else whenever he was in town.
Everything came to a boiling point when he came to town unexpectedly. I adapted quickly and said that I'd stay in my friend Michelle's room on a different floor. But I told her I had to work that night and would drop by around 11 to pick up stuff for the night. I showed up, just like I said that I would, and tried to open the door. It was both lock and chained. I unlocked it and opened it as far as I could. I was a little irritated. You shouldn't chain a door when there's somebody else that lives there. They were sleeping so I knocked a few times and then called through the gap in the door to wake them up. Her boyfriend got up and came to the door in his underwear. I asked him to open the door and he swore at me and slammed it in my face. I stood there for a while longer and began knocking like crazy. I was pretty good and angry by this point. I kept knocking and opening the door to the end of the chain and shouting into the room until Kayley finally got up and opened the door. I went in, turned on all of the lights, made as much noise as possible getting my things, and slammed the door on my way out. The very next day I had a few words with my resident assistant and got moved into my friend Michelle's room. I can't remember having a friendly conversation with Kayley after that. She got stranger and stranger and started to alienate a lot more people and I considered myself lucky that I had moved when I did. Needless to say, when I went home for Christmas, I had my nightmare roommate story to tell. What I didn't know then is that by the end of my college experience with roommates, Kayley would end up looking like a cakewalk.

Moving in with Michelle turned out to be a really fantastic experience. We had a wonderful semester together and chose to move in with two other friends the following year. After another year on campus, we decided to get an apartment together. We each got a cat and had a lot of the same friends and had a lot of fun together. After the third year, she graduated and moved on and I decided to transfer to another college in the state. I lived alone with my cat Sam for a year and we were probably the perfect roommates. We never fought, we cleaned the house together and did all that other crazy cat lady stuff together. It was heaven! Living alone also comes along with lots of expenses. It became financially irresponsible to continue living alone. So I began searching for a roommate. I wanted to find someone that I knew but didn't know really well. I just wanted it to be someone clean who would pay on time and share a space well. The place I was living was very large and would easily accommodate another tenant. The bedrooms were on opposite ends of the house from each other so it was really an ideal situation for two people who haven't necessarily known each other very long. Finally I found someone who I thought would work out perfectly. Let's say that her name is Tarah.

Tarah was a girl that I knew from school. She was in my degree program and had been in a few of my classes. We had even hung out before on a few occasions. She didn't seem like the brightest bulb on the planet but she was a different kind of fun than most of my other friends. She was that girl who was at the bars every weekend having a good time and living life up. I thought maybe some of her fun loving nature would rub off on me and really saw no reason why she wouldn't be fine to live with for a year. I knew she kept things pretty clean, I knew that her father would pay if for some reason she couldn't, she had a cute cat named Serena, and I knew she had a job. It all looked good to me. But...every three hundred years, the stars perfectly aline and as a result, I'm wrong.



So Tarah moves in and gets all set up. We'd had a few discussions about regular household stuff. She wanted cable in her room and I told her she'd have to pay the company to come hook it up for her since it was already connected in the living room and my room. She thought I should pay half and I made it very clear that I didn't feel responsible for that. So she didn't get it and we got rid of my HBO to save some money and everything was fine. I had been thinking of getting another cat but we talked about it and decided that I wouldn't and everything was fine. I came home one day to find all the lights on and candles lit but Tarah wasn't home. She didn't come home for a few hours and I was upset because of the electricity bill and fire hazards. We talked it out and it was fine. We had small confrontations that didn't cause tension and were quickly and easily resolved. We trucked along like this for about two months before things started getting tense. Tarah started dating a boy named Casey, as seems to be a re-occurring theme with my bad roommates. Casey didn't live in town so I had only seen him a few times. I always tried to be respectful to her and let her know when there were going to be people staying at the house. I tried to give her really advanced notice and make sure she was comfortable with the situation. She did the same for the most part and it was never a problem. One day I came home from work on my lunch break and Casey was sitting in the living room watching TV. I said hello and went about my business. I was kind of curious as to why he was there and Tarah wasn't but I didn't make a big deal out of it. When I got off of work that evening, my friend and I were going to cook dinner and hang out for a bit. I walked in the house and didn't notice anything was off at first. Then I started hearing noises. I knew my roommate wasn't home so I couldn't figure out where these noises were coming from. My roommates door was cracked open and I went over to peek inside. To my horror, there was a large animal kennel with a dog inside. The place we were living has a very strict pet policy. Cats are okay dogs require an extra deposit. If a pet was on the premises without advanced notice to the landlord, we could get evicted. I instantly panicked because I knew that she hadn't told the landlord it would be there. I like to think that if she had told the landlord, she would have mentioned it to me. I went into the room and moved the kennel and the dog onto the front porch. It was summer so the weather was fine and I made sure he had lots of water and some food. I even sat on the porch and talked to him for a while. I checked on him frequently while I was trying to get Tarah on the phone. She didn't answer for about an hour. When she did pick up the phone she was in a bar and very obviously drunk. She said they'd be home soon and wasn't very coherent. So I made dinner with my friend and waited for her to come home.

I heard her car pull up about an hour later. I look out the window and they have parked lopsided in the driveway, Casey is carrying a half empty case of beer, and they are both very obviously drunk. The door flies open and the dog comes running into the house. I try to push it back out but Casey and Tarah both start yelling at me at once. They are very drunk and belligerent and swearing and just ridiculous. I try to calmly explain that the dog is in violation of our lease and that she should have checked with me before she brought a dog into the house anyway. She flies off the handle and starts screaming about how I was breaking and entering into her room to get the dog out and that I'm violating property laws by touching and animal that isn't mine. I had to stop and stare in awe of how white-trash the whole situation was. At this point I'm starting to lose my temper and I'm really trying not to. Casey is yelling at me about how he's going to sue me for touching the dog and that if I ever lay another hand on the animal he'll kill me and kill my cat. That is where I lost my temper. Tarah recognized this and realized that if the situation continued to escalate she was going to lose so she finally tried to control the situation. Her and I went to my room and tried to talk about it away from her hot-headed, violent boyfriend. She tells me that she's keeping the dog and that there isn't anything I can do about it. She says that her boyfriend is staying on for an extended period of time and that there isn't anything I can do about it. I told her that I was extremely uncomfortable since he just threatened my safety and the safety of my pet. She says that I'm just going to have to live with it. And in that moment, I decide to make the rest of her stay with me as miserable as I possibly could. So I leave the house. The next day, I come back and get my cat and we stay with a friend of mine for a few days. In the meantime, I'm formulating a plan. A very good plan.

I did a lot of research on what my rights were as a tenant. I found out that if she chose to pay the pet deposit, I wouldn't be able to do anything about the dog. But if she wanted her boyfriend to stay, she would have to get written approval from our landlord and he would be added to the lease. In order for that to happen, I would have to sign too. There was no way on this earth that I was going to sign on for that. At the same time, I had also found out that she'd had some problems in other places that she had lived too. Apparently, she never payed the final utility bills for the place she had lived before and she owed rent there too. I also knew some things about her academic history that I was hoping would convince her to move out. I know it's blackmail....but I was getting desperate. I was so desperate that I even looked into getting a restraining order against her boyfriend for threatening me. I never actually followed through with any of it but I wanted to make sure that I had my options open. I went and saw an academic affairs counselor on campus to see if they'd have any ideas on what I should do. I didn't get much out of it. So I was going to try sitting down with Tarah one more time. After that, I was going to start playing dirty. I wanted my solitude back.

Tarah and I met up and it was supposed to be the two of us but she brought a friend so that I wouldn't bully her...because I've clearly been getting my way a lot so far. So as we sat down, I realized that her friend would be doing most of the thinking...I mean talking for Tarah. This friend, let's call her Sallie, was 25, had three kids with a man who constantly cheats on her, and had been planning to bring her kids to live with us while she gets a divorce. She was less than happy when I said she could absolutely not move in with her three kids. That being said, I was less than impressed with Tarah's chosen representative. Sallie went on this rant about how I needed to be more respectful to Tarah, and appreciate that she has needs, and learn to adapt to new situations. I calmly listened and then got up. I turned to Tarah and told her that she should look for a new place to live. I explained that if she stayed with me, I would make sure she regretted every moment of it. She was stubborn about it at first but she moved about two weeks later. I very happily signed off to have her removed from the lease and went back to my life of being fiscally irresponsible. She had lived with me for four months.

I had pretty much decided that I was going to live alone for the rest of my life after that. I got two kittens and settled into life as a crazier cat lady. I was accepted into an opera program in Italy last summer and didn't want to pay for the trip and rent while I was gone. So I took my cats to my parents house and dropped my lease for the summer. When I got back I looked for a new place to live. I was having no luck and realized that I was going to have to find another roommate. This sounded like the worst idea ever but I sucked it up and did it anyway. I asked my best friend Adrian if he wanted to move in with me and he eventually decided that he did. We've been living together for almost five months and things have been great. He loves my cats, he loves me, we don't fight, he pays, he's clean, he's dreadfully good looking. Everything has fallen into place this time around. If I ever do get irritated with something he does, I just think about how much worse things could be.

Better and Better

All I've been able to think about for the last year is that I need to make a change. Everything I've done in my life has been because that's what I was supposed to do. I've been on autopilot for so long that I've forgotten what it's like to experience legitimate joy every day. This depressing fact is maximized by the additional information that I'm only 23 years old. So I've decided that in this new year, I'm going to get back to basics. I'm going to go back to doing all of the things that make me happy. I started my personality make-over about a week ago and my happiness has already swung in the right direction. I've started reading more, I'm listening to music and dancing around my house, I'm taking time to just be by myself, and I'm singing for fun again.

This last thing is by far the most important. Studying music seemed like the answer to everything. Once I decided to study it, I never questioned that it was the right thing for me to do. I even transferred after 3 years so that I could get more performance experience. It has been the most joyful and the most heartbreaking experience. Things that you're passionate about have this way of rewarding you and then kicking you when you're down. You don't get into music thinking that it will reward you all the time. That would be insane. The world of music is a big rejection door just waiting to slam itself in your face. No matter how hard you work and how much you want it, the answer is often no. If you can get through all of that rejection and still want it, and still be happy it might possibly reward you. And that's what artists wait for. We wait for the rejection to clear so that we can have the reward. So that we might be able to glimpse a future where we can support ourselves off of our passion. Don't get me wrong, hard work and nurtured talent can get you successes along the way. But the ultimate goal always seems like its in the distance. Like running towards something for years just to realize you've been running on a treadmill and haven't gotten any closer. But still we do it. Most times, we love it. You wouldn't be able to do it if you didn't love it.

All that being said, I need to take a step back. It isn't that I don't love it anymore. It isn't that I don't want it anymore. The problem is that I can't see the goal anymore. I'm not running towards anything. I have a general idea. I know that I want to sing for a living. I've been studying classical music but I also have experience in musical theater and jazz. I've begun to feel boxed in by studying classical music and nothing else. I miss musical variety. I miss the freedom of musical theater and the abandon of jazz. I've been going through the motions. When I do wake up long enough to think about music, I mostly discourage myself. I can't do that anymore. I'm tired of feeling defeated all the time. So I'm not going to do it anymore. I finish my undergraduate degree in May and then I'm taking two years off. The first year, I'm going to move. I don't know where. I'm just going to uproot and go live independently somewhere. I have not ties or responsibilities that restrict me so I'm just going to go. When I get there, I'm going to find a voice teacher and keep taking lessons. My search for my identity doesn't need to ruin my training. Then I'm going to find a job or two. I'm going to work, take lessons, meet new people, and experience new things. In the second year, I'm going to audition. I'm going to apply to grad school and audition for opera choruses and summer programs and just prepare to throw myself back into things. I have no doubt that I'll be ready for whatever happens after that. I confidently believe that spending two years away from my friends and family and everything familiar will help me stand on my own two feet.

Once I decided that I was taking time off, my outlook brightened so much. I've just been happier. I don't stress out about everything anymore. I'm relaxed and ready to get started. I've been going out and redeveloping friendships and making new friends. And it's only been a week! I like how this is going already and I'm hoping that life will get better and better. That's all we can really hope for.