I am, right now, feeling a hell of a lot like the prodigal son. I'm a professional musician and music teacher by trade. That notwithstanding, it's been a hell of a couple of years.
I haven't effectively practiced my instrument in over three years. Yet I still maintain a viable career and an active teaching studio. Practice what I preach? Not a whit.
Until tonight.
For the past eight years or so my playing's been dampened by clinical depression. Despite all of the gifts I've been given in the area of music, I couldn't seem to motivate myself to take that one extra step. Practice. Work. Devotion to the art form.
It was like a thousand-ton weight above my head. Do it. Or you'll be like the rest of the musical losers. Behind a desk. Bitter. A nobody. Do it. Or you'll be wasting your talent. Do it. Show all those assholes that said you couldn't because you were too weak. Too lazy. Too sorry. Too thin-skinned. Do it.
I barely survived school and fell headlong into the arms of a magnificent man, who has singlehandedly kept me going these past five years. Also being a musician, he's watched me battle myself daily in this, steadfastly supportive and silent.
Growing up I was somewhat of a prodigy, excelling with ease in music. I loved it. I lived for it. However, by the time I finished high school, I was a little worn around the edges, and by the time I graduated from college I was a bona-fide mental wreck of a burnout. You would have had to drag me kicking and screaming into a little five by five practice hole (room).
Little by little I've been coming back from the edge. It's taken three years and a lot of self-inspection, but as of today I'm a free woman.
Tonight for the first time in years, I was able to practice duress-free. To the point of exhaustion. On my own.
And I loved it.
Look out all of you stuffed-shirt, critical motherfuckers. I'm about to knock your socks off.
