Post-Birthday Letdown? Or Something Else?

First, on an upbeat note, here is a link to a really inspirational piece by the esteemed Susan Eichhorn Young.

http://susan-oncemorewithfeeling.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-beauty-of-cream.html

I really really need this right now.  Reading this piece made me feel it is "OK" for me to think I have something special that is worth fostering.

Here's one big problem.  I have said (and meant) that I don't really care if I get paid for singing.  I have something else that I get paid for doing and I am lucky to even have that in this economy.  It's dull (although I take pride in doing it well, and can get caught up in narratives about people dying of cancer, historic Supreme Court cases from the turn of the 20th Century, the latest techniques for using lasers for root canals, etc.) but I can do it at home on my own time.  Where there's a problem, is that if you don't do something for a living, other people don't think you should make it a priority.  So - it's OK if you can't do something because you're working but not if you're involved with something that's a hobby.  Singing in church is ok because people should have a right to practice their religion.  Even prisoners (which I sometimes feel like and certainly identify with) get to do that.  Never mind that it doesn't happen to be my religion - although that's not actually true.  If one of my religions is High Art, then I get to practice it every Sunday that I sing a piece by Bach, Beethoven, or Benjamin Britten, just to name a few.  But once I step outside the acceptable box of work, family, and religion, it becomes more problematic.

I was feeling excited about making plans to choose some things to sing in a concert on September 11 (which I don't even know yet if I have a spot in).  When I mentioned this to my partner I will give her credit that she didn't ask my why I was doing this and give me a hard time, but she did say "well, I assume you're not getting paid, but I know you will be happy to have the experience."  So OK.  An improvement over telling me I am wasting time and money, but not exactly a big thumbs up.

(I have decided to postpone telling her about the Requiem until another day.)

One of my problems is I don't just love singing, I love all the ambient trappings that go with life as a singer, and I have even less access to those except in a contrived way - out-dressing everyone for an evening in the theater - that people find silly and superfluous.  Many singers don't love those things.  They see them as a necessary evil, the way I saw numbers as a necessary evil when I had a job supervising 20 people.  I was interested in the people, not in bloody metrics!!  I not only want to wail out an aria with technical precision and passion, I also want to get dressed up, talk to people about my hair, makeup, and outfits, have pictures taken, travel, live in hotels (some people want a McMansion - my dream is to live in an expensive hotel where I never have to lift a finger), see the world without having to shell out thousands of dollars for a "vacation", flirt with "coworkers" as part of my "job", and, just, in general, be a public person.

Even the friends with benefits I hide under the table have to be, well, hidden under the table, so I can't even brag to the universe about having that at 62.  Which is no mean feat, considering that they're both 45.

So I have this exciting life that is meaningful to me, and then there's the person other people think they see and interact with: the stay-at-home copyeditor, the tenant advocate, the friend, the caregiver, the museum attendee, the person who reads the New York Times.


Maybe I should work on my "happening".  If someone can dress up as the Statue of Liberty maybe I should put on an evening gown, stilettos, and a wig, and pose outside the Food Emporium.  All I need now is a photographer.  And I can't let my partner know - she would be horrified.

And now it's time to go practice.