So why do the "envies" constantly creep up on me?
There is something that I want. A lot of it has to do with singing - singing is the core of it, but it's more.
When I read Facebook and other postings from "real" singers, what is it they are doing that I am so envious of? Well - dressing up for one.
I grew up in an environment that disapproved of dressing up. My mother used to quote Thoreau - "Distrust any endeavor that requires new clothes". O how different from my ultra-feminine friends with their ultra-feminine mothers who wanted to take them shopping and admire them in this, that, or the other. In fact, if you look at the photo that my mother wanted for her obituary
you will see that she has, in essence, no hair (it is scraped back in a knot), no cosmetics, and a face that is, at least to me, rather genderless.
When she died and I went through her things, I could see that she had not bought any new clothes (except the odd turtleneck and some sneakers) in probably three decades, and I have inherited no jewelry other than some beads and some politically-correct ethnic horrors that I gave away.
When I was a child and an adolescent I was always jonesing to dress up which she had no understanding of.
As an adult, when I ended up with a partner who was female, I found that I was marrying an ideology, not just a person, and was surrounded by hordes of women who chanted disapproval of me as I wistfully played with my cosmetics (they were all I had left to adorn myself with - I owned no skirts, dresses,or women's shoes).
Decades later, I have a closet full of gowns and long skirts (and a few other oddities, like a fringed black lycra skirt and another tight black skirt with suggestive zippers that can be zipped - or not) but noplace to wear them.
In any event, these "real" singers spend their days purchasing gowns for concerts (even if all they're singing is an alto part in an oratorio with minimal exposure) and being stuffed into period costumes with cleavage (even the "frump" roles get to show cleavage, so it seems). Then they post the photos on Facebook and everyone oohs and ahs.
When I left my last full time job I got a "severance package" which included, in addition to the crown jewel of health insurance for life until Medicare, a year of career counseling. The outfit I went to was quite good and they actually specialized in finding second careers for people over 50. So I thought I could at least segue into a glamorous career, if not singing, maybe selling toothpaste (I am being partly facetious here) in a different city every month (or at least in a different office every month) with a drop dead wardrobe as a work requirement. On that score, though, I think this career counseling outfit overestimated its power. What I ended up with was tools to find work I could do at home in my pajamas, which has left me more time for singing, more sleep, the freedom to fulfill my eldercare responsibilities without having to beg and beseech time off like a child asking "Mommy may I?" but it hardly fulfills my need to be glamorous. And needless to say, on a small budget, even if I have the clothes, I am not about to go anywhere where I could wear them, as such places are expensive to frequent and what excuse would I have to be doing so in any event?
Now make no mistake. Even if I'm going grocery shopping I have on stage makeup and when my big hair starts to wilt (which it certainly has by now) I call in my Irish hairdresser to perm it in smelly rollers for two hours (she is coming Thursday). And usually if I go into a store that sells cosmetics someone asks me if I'm an actress, because of course I wouldn't be caught dead in anything that looks "natural" even if it's only to wear to the grocery store.
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