I would love to quit playing. I would love to retire now. I believe that I could pack up everything about my music career and sell it and be just fine. I am not my oboe.
But there are those who don’t believe I could do it. And this prevents me from getting to retire.
Sometimes I think I’d be better off dying just to get out of this predicament!
I’ve been told that I need to trust that I am a good musician. I get told that my imposter’s syndrome is just a lie (and it’s really not imposter’s syndrome if it’s TRUE, so there’s that!). But …
I have friends who compliment me and tell me I’m good, but have never hired me to play in their groups. I have friends who have lied to me about jobs, replacing me with someone else. I have never been asked to play in a festival, aside from emergency subbing. I haven’t been asked to play in our local little groups for about thirty years.
So while people tell me to get over it and trust that I’m good, the proof is, I would think, in the pudding. Or the hiring. Or lack of hiring.
I’m okay with it now: my career is ending. I’m nearly done. My life is dwindling down as well.
But I wish people would stop telling me I’m imagining things and too insecure. If I truly were a good musician I’d be asked to work more. Right?
Something happened today that ate at my soul. It’s nothing worth talking about. It’s nothing I will tell anyone else. But I know the drill at this point in my life: I will be a wreck for a week or so. My stomach will be in knots. I’ll want to cry. I’ll want to sleep. I’ll get very little done.
I’m 62 years old. And I still take far too long to get over things when someone has done something to harm me.
My days are numbered.
They are numbered in regards to my private studio.
They are numbered when it comes to jobs I’m asked to play.
They are numbered when it comes to how much longer I will be performing.
They are numbered — and I’m counting down but I don’t know from what number I’m counting! — when it comes to my days on this dusty planet.
I will only know when I’ve reached zero, though, when things are truly over.
It’s a strange feeling.
We had a really nice dinner with our next door neighbor and his lovely girlfriend. It was quite a fun time, full of humor, good food and wine, and, really, lots of love.
Now I just want to cry.
This is the life of an introvert.
A number of friends have said, “I want to buy a photo!”
Very few have.
I hear, “I want a photo but I sure wish you’d just give me one.”
I am trying hard to work on what comes out of my mouth. I can’t stop myself from thinking some rather rotten things, but I don’t need to speak them out loud. I might get annoyed with the stuff of life, and with some people, but no one needs to know.
That being said, I just “unfriended” a person. She is a climate change denier and I’m just done. She also a one-issue voter. And I guess I’m fed up. I’m weary of people who are blind to what is happening in our world. The answer, to her, is “Jesus”. And for some reason that means climate change can’t happen. I’m just tired of things like that. I’m done dealing. I’m done getting upset with someone I’ll never see again on this dusty planet. So oh well.
So much for that “working on what comes out of my mouth”, eh? But hey, I won’t name the person and I wish her no ill. I just can’t read any more of the stuff she writes.
And in other news, I’m dismayed at my music world at the moment. I think it will make it much easier to retire. So that’s a good thing, I suppose!
FInally … a little hello to me. No one else reads these! When I moved this from another service to WordPress I lost the small audience I had and barely anyone knows about this. Maybe no one ever will!
