It's Not What You Know, It's Who(m) You Know

(As for the title, there was a long discussion thread in one of my copyeditor online groups about whether to use the m.  It was decided that using it is correct grammar, and that not using it is idiomatic, in that "It's not what you know it's who you know" has become a little jingle.)

Despite my having had a pleasant time at choir practice and trying to work on anger management, yesterday I had a huge meltdown.  It had to do with my partner's having a minor health problem that she allowed to get out of hand, with repercussions (I don't want to go into these here; I do respect her privacy in some regards) that led to my having to drop everything and run over there yesterday.  I had promised not to be "mad" at her, which I wasn't, although when I got there and saw the state the apartment was in I burst into tears.  Then things just went from bad to worse.  The problem is that I am awash up to my neck in people who went to Ivy League schools, have multiple graduate degrees, have music or theater degrees, have fellowships, are going to school in early middle age because they have "connections" (more on that in a minute, as that is what prompted the title of this post) and then what I have to contend with is my dreary dull work, and someone else's mega dysfunction, which is very wearing no matter how much I love her.  The contrast between my life and these people's (considering that we all started out in the same place socioeconomically, more or less) is just sometimes more than I can bear.

As I was leaving yesterday, after we had patched things up, my partner said something so profound, it shook me to my core.  She said "take care of 'us'.  'Us' is real.  All the things you want are not real, are they, if you don't have them?"  I wish so very very much that I could believe this.  I mean really believe it.  But you see I don't, because the things I want are being lived out by 90% of the people I know every hour of every day.  These are not things that I see on tv or read about in the newspaper.  Lincoln Center is not someplace I heard of and want to visit someday (something a relative of my partner's said recently).  I have to pass it every single day when I go to the grocery store, the drug store, the bank, or the subway.  That mega marker of my my failure and irrelevance, towering over me never letting me forget how insignificant and pathetic I am.

Then I saw this picture

on Facebook, liked it, and shared it.  And thought I was grounded.

No sooner than I did that, than I found out that the woman I referred to in the previous post, who is getting a multi-art degree, is getting this free of charge because her husband teaches theater at the university in question.  So there you have it.  I don't begrudge her this, she is a good person.  But that is why she is doing what she is doing, and I am (not) doing what I am (not) doing.  It does matter whom you know.  Yes, you need talent, and you need hard work.  People aren't handed something for nothing.  But you need to be in that milieu.  If you weren't born into it,  you need to go to school for it when you are young, meet people, and maybe marry one of them.  And then that network is there.  

So how can I get past this?  How can I stop sobbing and screaming that I have all this talent (which I have been told by other people) that no one cares about?  That I want to be somebody?  Maybe it would be easier if I were Christian.  Christians believe that the last is first and the least is best.  But do they really? The church I sing at does many many many good works (which is why I give them a charitable donation) but it is the Ivy Leaguers, the conservatory graduates, and the people working on and off Broadway who are the "stars" there, not the health aides and the people who work in the food pantry.