A Wish List

I know I should be working, not blogging, but all this soul searching I've been doing has led to my narrowing down what it is I want. In other words, what it is I'm missing that is making me so depressed.

I know what is not possible, and those things are not on the table. I am not asking to have a "career" singing, nor am I even asking to go to an audition for a leading role on the no-pay circuit and be cast in it (life is too short for me to want to perform a comprimaria role on the no-pay circuit).

I also know that pop psych blather about "not expecting validation from other people" blah blah blah, but that's hogwash. Everyone wants validation from other people. If you go to a dance, for example, it's nice if someone asks you to dance once in a while - you shouldn't have to do all the asking. Nor should your social life consist of you doing all the inviting. You should get to be a guest (the French word invitee sounds better in this context actually) some of the time.

I think what I wanted most of all was for some of the people I bumped into, who organize concerts, to invite me to sing with them.

We can start with the man who told me about the venue where I put on my concert a few weeks ago.

When I got into an email argument with him (not to repeat here in detail, but it was about his not using singers over 42 or making it sound as if that was what he was doing) he told me about this venue, so I pursued it. Did he invite me to sing in even one of the monthly concerts he puts on? No.
And he heard me sing at an audition and I don't think I did badly. If nothing else, I know I can make people go weak-kneed when I sing Mon Coeur and if you bump and grind in a low cut dress who gives a flying fig if you end the bloody aria on an (unwritten) B flat or on an F??

Did the woman who runs the Tuesday meetup invite me to sing in (or even audition for) a concert she was putting on? No. Did she keep me on her regular email routing or ever comment on anything I'd posted on Facebook or ask how I was? No.

Did the woman who rents out the place where I gave the concert personally invite me to sing at her soiree or even make an attempt to stay in touch? No,although this bothers me less, as she did say some really nice things to me that will stay with me for a long time, and she knows hundreds of people.

Yes, I do plan to continue to organize things myself. I mean,if I'm going to end up spending a few hundred dollars I would rather spend it on singing Dalila - or the mezzo solos from the Verdi Requiem - than on buying "tickets" to sing a tiny role in an opera that requires three nights a week of rehearsal.

But it just that all this makes me feel really "unwanted".