New Year's Resolutions: Check In

Pursuant to the conversation I had with my therapist last Friday about "depression", she told me to listen to "the smartest person in the room".  When I disingenuously asked her who that was (assuming she meant me), she said "the BabyD who wrote the New Year's Resolutions" (which I had shown her).

So I thought maybe it is time for a check in, to see how I am doing.

1. Get off the following merry-go-round: Working at home alone makes me depressed, not working enough hours gives me financial anxiety which makes me more depressed, and the idea of using my pittance of free time to try to find something else to do for a living is the most depressing of all.  To do instead: Work as many hours as I have to, admit that I hate doing it, that this is something that it is too late to change, as finding a new livelihood at my age would require a prohibitive amount of time, money, or both, and make the rest of my life as colorful, richly peopled, sensual, and right brain as possible.
I have held to my decision to take "how to earn a living" off the table as a topic.  When I had my taxes done in April, I saw that I had earned $1000 more last year than the previous year and guess what?  It all went back to the tax man.  This year on the whole, I have been happier, and guess what? I am working less and earning less than I did the year before.  Sometimes I think I would rather sleep in a shelter and sing in the subway (if I had to) than spend any more hours moving punctuation around, but I may be exaggerating.  Well, I can continue to spend my mother's savings (I still have two 401ks in addition) and remind myself it is only a little more than two years until I can collect Social Security.  As for making the rest of my life as colorful, etc. as possible, yes, I was doing that when I was working on Carmen.  So now what? [Let's say for this I get a grade of B.]

2. Do everything I can to jump-start my imagination.  I am finding small ways to do this, even just looking for pictures for "Throwback  Thursday" on Facebook. [Let's say for this I get a grade of B plus.  At least it's something I am mindful of most of the time.]

3. Tell myself every day that yes I am an artist (singer, writer) even if this isn't what I do for a living.  This is hard, because I am surrounded by people who do do this, if not for a living, then as an almost full-time activity.  I did a head count and see that half the people in my choir perform or have performed regularly somewhere else or have a degree in theater or music.  I would guess that more than 20% of the other people in the congregation do something in the performing arts either in administration or pedagogy even if they don't perform.  And I live on Manhattan's Upper West Side - because I have a rent regulated apartment.  If I could choose where to live, I would probably move to Murray Hill, which is a lot more vanilla and where I would stand out more. The fact that my Carmen had, in essence, to compete with someone's senior recital at a conservatory for conversational attention never mind for attendees, says it all. [Definitely a grade of D for this one.]

4. Spend more time with "ordinary folk" (not easy when you live on Manhattan's Upper West side).  See item 3.  Where are these people???? [A grade of F.]

5. Stop reading blogs from working performing artists who one way or another, find ways to disparage amateurs, whether it's me or Miss Kansas, and get these people off my Facebook list (mostly done).  This is done. I have also reorganized my Facebook friends list so that the singers I friended because I admired them, who mostly did not care about me at all, are not listed as "close friends" so I see their postings less often. [A big thumbs up!  This gets a grade of A.]

6. Treasure every minute with my SO.  She is almost 80. I am doing this.  One of the main reasons I am working less isn't (sigh) that I am singing more; it's that I am spending more time with my SO.  Even it it's just doing laundry.  Every time I look at her I know that any day I could lose her: she has heart disease and COPD.  I am taking her to Ogunquit for her 80th birthday and screw all the money it will cost.  That's what the money is there for, isn't it? [This also gets a grade of A.]

7. Always have a solo singing gig in my future.  So far I am staying on top of this, even it it's not a definite date written in stone.  [I will give myself a grade of B.]

8. Spend more time working on the non-technical skills I need to sing.  I have been doing more of this.  Carmen was the first thing I did requiring staging in 35 years.  And I am working on my Spanish diction, and as a byproduct, am acquainting myself with the IPA.  I still can't bring myself to study the solfege book, though. Part of the problem with this, though, is time.  If it's a choice between studying a language or doing vocal exercises and studying music, the latter wins out. [So I'll give myself a grade of C plus, but I'm ok with that.]

9. Write more, even just this blog.  I have not really done this at all, unless you consider the work I did creating a script from the novella of Carmen.  But, per item 8, time is the issue. [So I'll give myself a grade of C minus, but I'm ok with that.]

10. Take more risks. I really don't know if I have done this or not.  I certainly feel like I am playing Russian Roulette with my finances.  On the other hand part of me regrets bitterly that I chose short term financial security over a career (even if not in the performing arts) that I would really find fulfilling. I suppose that performance of Carmen was taking a risk.  And I am reacquainting myself with Amneris and Azucena. [So I suppose this gets a grade of C plus.]

So.  Looking at this I see - again - that my Achilles heel is the environment that I'm in.  It is very very hard to feel good about myself and my accomplishments when I am drowning in a tsunami of talent and become, therefore, invisible.  I have the odd personal friend here and there who gives me encouragement but that is not the same as being perceived as a performer or an artist by the people I meet in my daily life.  I really am at a total impasse about this.  I can't move.  First of all I am from here so there is noplace to go "back to" where the standards are lower and the talent pool is smaller. Ironically, there is noplace I could live more cheaply than in this apartment.  I don't know how to drive.  It really is a sad bit of irony.  I'm sure I would be in Seventh Heaven if I lived, say, in Leonardtown, Maryland (where a friend of mine from Maine moved to be near her daughter, and for the "quiet").  I could take a bus into Baltimore once a month for a singing lesson and put together local "talent shows" where I would get to sing an aria for people who may never have heard one, be the go-to soloist at a local church, and educate people about classical music.  I mean I know there are people in New York who are not performers (and therefore would see me as one even for the small things I do) but I haven't a clue where to find a group of these people all in one place, nor do I have time for any more "activities".