New Opportunities, Lessons Learned

Getting older means that priorities change. But at what point does it become just giving up and settling down? I feel as though I have done most of what has been asked of me, most of what I was supposed to do. But I can't help but think of all the things that I did not do. And where I might be in life if I had followed my passions and not just become the responsible one.

I know I am not in a bad spot, but I am not happy with where I am at right now (in a grand scheme of things sort of way, not so much a young person climbing the ladder in a hurry sort of way). I was the good kid and I followed the good jobs with good benefits and good opportunities. But now all I have are conservative skills and creative leanings.

People that I have been talking to lately have said that everyone hates their jobs and that is just how adult life is... but I refuse to accept that every single adult human is generally unhappy in life everyday. 'Pursue your hobbies on your off time!', they say. But if you commit the majority of your time and effort to something like a 40+ hour work week, shouldn't you at least like the job or at least feel rewarded in some way beyond monetary compensation? I don't feel capable of expending any extra energy on extra curricular activities after working all day, all week, because I find interacting with people and doing uncreative work to be emotionally and physically draining. I don't have anything left to give to the stuff that feeds me in my off hours. If you have a job that meets your physical needs, you don't have the time and motivation to work on your art. But if you have only your art, your physical needs nagging at you so that you cannot be comfortable enough from hunger and cold to create.

What is the answer then? Do we all just have to try to cram in as much as we possibly can into the week in hopes that we get it all accomplished? Do we give up security for spiritual contentment or vice versa? Do we try to find a career that is as close to our passion as possible and hope that that energizes us enough to seek our art further?

I refuse to be foolish or reckless in my decisions as an adult, but I also would like to refuse to be apathetic or blindly accepting. I am not sure which path will bring me closer to some sense of peace or accomplishment, but I feel very far away from where I originally intended myself to be. I feel like a poisoned version of myself. The farther I get along in adulthood, the worse I feel from stress and dissatisfaction, which makes it that much harder to get back to being the way that I was when I was somehow able to devote all of my free time to artistic endeavors. It is a vicious cycle that feels too difficult to break. Maybe periods of creativity like that only happen when you are young or without financial worry.

I keep telling myself that I should just give up music or give up writing, but it is like an itch. Not being creative makes me feel like something is missing or like something is wrong. I am compelled. Even when it is an obligation of some sort, I still get more out of doing little projects than almost anything else.

Since I have been so ill for the past year, I have had to convince my brain that I had to work on getting better above all else and that things needed to go on the back burner. But now that I am finally on the mend, I feel like I have forgotten how to do things, because so much time has passed. My muscles have atrophied. I have played the piano less than five times in the last year and a half, I think. And now I am scared to do it, because I am afraid I won't know how to do it anymore (as if over a decade of lessons would just disappear) or that I will get too easily frustrated at my inability to do as well as I used to. I have been asked about playing so many times lately and I hate that I have nothing to say but that I have not been doing anything musical. It used to be my identity. And now it feels like another person, in another time.

I am so scared of failing that it constantly keeps me from trying. I keep talking myself out of challenges and opportunities because it feels so much harder than it used to feel. And it all comes back to the beginning of the first paragraph. I don't want to wonder about what I did not do anymore. I want to see where life will lead me and not expect the unexpected to be automatically bad. If I do not create, what will have the been the point of being here? If my life is just working, sleeping and eating, then why bother caring about anything? That is not enough to sustain someone. I only have so long to do what I love, so why am I acting as if fear of failure is somehow a stronger force than death? Shouldn't the idea that life is short and finite motivate me to do as much as I can while I can? I am young enough to start over and old enough to know better than before.