SassyBlonde

I've just spent the better part of my afternoon on what I think may be a colossal exercise in futility.

After I went to see Heidelah's show this afternoon, I came home and woodshedded for an hour or so, and then set about the terrifying and frustrating business of recording an audition CD for the preliminary round of one of my dream jobs. Doesn't sound so bad, right? Wrong.

D and I have been having a lot of conversations lately about growing up, growing old, and when to call a spade a spade. For every aspiring professional musician, there comes a time, a moment, when you have to take a hard look at the path you've chosen and either admit that you need to get off your ass or resign yourself to the fact that you will ever after that point be nothing more than mediocre. This is a choice that is only presented to a very few-- most musicians are decidedly mediocre from the get-go and this moment is simply one of realization and hopefully, acceptance that their path will never be the stellar, one-in-a-million career that they have hoped for since they were young: they will simply be a good serviceable member of the masses, making a good living but never famous outside their own bathrooms and probably only recognized by their immediate colleagues with whom they trudge to the never-ending lineup of faceless, nameless performances. There's no shame in being one of the latter, not at all. What becomes shameful is the forty-year-old who is still waiting for the big break that will make them a star with no clue that their trajectory will never take them that high.

I don't know if it should be called growing up, becoming mature, or simply getting older and wiser, but almost everybody comes to that point sooner or later. I think my life is rapidly approaching that exact decision, and I'm starting to realize that unless I do something drastic the choice will be made for me before I can make it myself, simply because I'm afraid to try and fail. I had a great conversation with Styxsdaughter tonight that made me feel better about the process, but at the same time I keep vacillating between stellar moments of confidence and bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and inadequacy. I go from being perfectly willing to dive in head-first to the process to wanting to sell my instruments and become a secretary. Usually this starts to occur when I look at the chat forums pertaining to the audition process and read the fan chatter about the respective candidates.

I am not one of the talented wunderkinds who went to an elite conservatory (by choice of my own mind you, which I could still remedy) and won a job before I reached drinking age. I aspire to hold jobs that some of those same precocious geniuses now possess, though, and it leaves me cold when I think of my resume lined up with theirs at the age of thirty-one. I haven't taken a serious audition in more than eight years. I have at least six months of hard-core musical ditch-digging to do until I'm back on my A game.

Not that any of the above changes my decision, mind you. My A game is formidable, and I have recordings to prove it (and remind me when I feel like a human dung heap.) I can honestly say that when I'm on I'm a contender, no lying and no bullshit. Me at my best is as good as any wunderkind.

Not that I have a choice. When I went back to school a few years ago I discovered in spades that I was meant to do this and learned not to question that any more. Now I just have to figure out somehow how not to be terrified of the idea of taking that big step forward and making the leap of faith that I can do it. Dammit. I don't want to look back on my life and wonder. Dammit. I don't to lose out because I'm afraid.

So here's my question to all of you: how do you psych yourself into doing things that terrify you? How about when it's not just for one day, but day after day after day? Help a girl out-- now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of your fellow blogger, even if you've never commented before. I need some answers.

And now, to serve as food for thought, the Decemberists: