The path to self-discovery is always interesting. It feels very much like waking up after a long nap. I’ve recently realized that for most of my academic life I didn’t think. I am reasonably intelligent, always got my work done, and I’m good at taking tests, so I did well in school, but I didn’t really learn all that much. Or so it seems. As a result, I’m having to relearn all of my music history and music theory this summer in preparation for my entrance exams. But that’s beside the point.
I really feel like I’ve been sleepwalking through my life, and I’ve suddenly woken up in my late 20s. I still feel like such a kid, yet I’m already seeing (and promptly pulling out) gray hairs. My knees are more achy than they used to be. I no longer get carded when I buy a bottle of wine. (Getting carded used to annoy me, but now I wish I still did.) More importantly, I’m realizing how many oportunities I missed in the haze.
Today I was poking around on the internet and found an article about a mezzo I’d never heard of. She’s some bright new star in the Bay Area or something. I read a few sentences until I saw that she’s 25, a couple years younger than me. I stopped reading. For some reason it bothered me.
I am reminded of a quote from Hope Floats: “Do you think behind every chance there’s another one, and another one? It’s the worst kind of extravegance the way you spend your chances.” The wording may not be exact, but that’s the gist of it. The worst kind of extravegance… I saw school, even my college days, as something I had to get through rather than an oportunity to learn and expand my horizons. A chance wasted. I had a passion for singing and a plan for getting to grad school, but I abandoned it for the practical road of a credential. Another chance wasted. I knew almost immediately that teaching high school was not for me, yet I persisted in the credential program and a few more years of substitute teaching drudgery before I woke up and heard the aria, so to speak. Why did it take me so long to figure it out? I guess I’m just a dunce. Small wonder that I’m still just a wannabe.
I should have listened to my undergrad voice teacher. I must have been talking to her about getting my credential and doing the practical thing, because she told me that it was not time yet for me to worry about being practical. Once you’re married and have kids, she said, is the time to be practical. But when you’re in your early 20s, single, and have your whole life out ahead of you it’s the time to be a passionate dreamer, to explore your possibilities. Travel, she said, try new things. Figure out what makes you tick. I wish I’d realized then that her advice about being a dreamer would, in the long run, be more practical than being practical.
To be fair, other oportunities have cropped up along the way. Not all of them wasted. I had the chance to put together a church choir and do a couple of very exciting programs, which were very well recieved. I have also had the chance to start teaching voice at the local junior college. In the fall I will probably be hired on there officially as an adjunct. It will be good work while I’m working on my degree. It will also keep me insanely busy. 
And in some ways I am glad to have my education background, because I am using some of what I learned as I trained to be a teacher in planning for my voice lessons.
These years haven’t been completely wasted, but I just can’t help lamenting some of my decisions.
Oh well. If I never made any mistakes I would never learn from them.
~wannabe
