Postpartum Depression

I don't really know what else to call it.

The Good Friday service went well.  It wasn't as exciting as I had expected (nor as well attended as usual) and when I got home I felt sandbagged by something I can only call "depression".

Is it because I am grieving over Abbie?  I have not really felt like crying over her loss.  Abbie was not a poignant, sympathetic, tragic figure, similarly to how my mother was not those things.  Abbie really was all the things my mother was, only nicer: cerebral, direct, not suffering fools gladly, hating sentimentality.  She was also someone who would always turn up and "do" if you needed her.  My mother was all those things but she didn't know how to "make nice", which Abbie did.  (My mother would have contemptuously dismissed that as "Southern").

In any event, the loss of Abbie is a loss and somewhat of a shock, but I don't feel sad.  Since she had moved to the Left Coast about four years ago we had not seen her.  And one blessing I now have is, after telling a church friend about my feeling of loss, particularly that I have now lost someone whom I always assumed would be there to be helpful when my partner died, this friend said that if she was "alive and mobile" (she is about 6 years older than I am) she would go to Maine with me to scatter my partner's ashes.

But I am feeling other losses as well. Yes, the Good Friday service went well, but once again it made me realize all the talent I am drowning in.  Although there was one thing of note, a situation in which I surprised myself.  The "boy soprano" woman I mentioned (she is not young; probably close to my age) sang really well, probably the best I'd ever heard her, and I was genuinely happy for her.  I told her it was the best I had ever heard her sing, which is true.  And she had the perfect voice for the plaintive "Agnus Dei".  I think the issue is that however bitter and envious I often am, I am happy when someone my age, who is still working on her art, does well.  Everyone kvells over the young talent.  They breathe up all the air in the room whether they want to or not.  So us older folks, who are by no means done and by no means a "finished product" want our moment too.  Of course the new dramatic soprano was the star of the evening.  Just because of her talent (she is certainly the opposite of a prima donna).  The tenor with whom I have had a relationship that runs hot and cold (I was stunned last year when he complimented me on singing Maundy Thursday) made a fuss over her, talking with his wife on the street afterwards.  On the other hand, her path forward may not be easy.  She has a much bigger and more impressive voice than Little Miss, but she is less versatile and less surrounded by a clacque although she does have a supportive voice teacher.  She is going to be singing a secondary role in a Wagner production somewhere.  I just so yearn to be special, which I will never be.

Easter will be a vocal anti-climax.  I opted to sing the alto part in "Worthy is the Lamb" from the Messiah.  It is a bleeping octave below the soprano part.   I think my teacher was right that the part was written for countertenors, not women.  I probably could sing the soprano part (particularly since we are not doing the "Amen" at the end which has a phrase that starts on a high A) but I didn't have time to sing it into my voice and the dramatic soprano will be there singing it, so to coin a metaphor, it is stupid to put the two heaviest people on the same side of the boat.  So, ironically, Easter, which is supposed to be a high point, will be a low point for me both vocally and otherwise, but then it will be over and I can go back to working on the "Drinking Song", which has a high A in it.  And when I show up for warm up on Sunday I will make sure I have warmed up at home to an A just because I can.

In a more intellectual mode, I was interested to read a quote from Nadia Bolz-Weber in which she said that the message of the Resurrection is that it is an opportunity for people to be resurrected from the graves they dig for themselves.  For me (someone who is totally skeptical about the "Risen Christ") this really resonates.  Maybe I can rise from the grave I'm always digging for myself? I can never turn the clock back and be a teen or a 20something with a clean, glorious voice undamaged by cigarettes and alcohol, making my way undistracted. So I need to "get over it".