Has anyone ever given up something that really mattered to them, either because it became too hard or painful...or for someone else?
I gave up my music years ago, and have only recently began playing again...and I find it too apinful to play often, because it still brings back unwanted memories and feelings.
The last time I played in public was my grandmas funeral....and i had given up music years before that, so I wasn't that good then, either.
I seem to have teouble letting go of it, but I don't feel comfrtable playing anymore either.
Weird.
Kwea
[ October 06, 2004, 11:44 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by CStroman (Member # 6872) on :
I gave up all my aspiratons to have a biological child in every state in the union....<sigh>...I never even got started on that goal.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Hahaha....
Well, it isn't too late to get started on that one, I guess...
If it is, go see a Doc about one of those little blue pills...
Kwea
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
I left people that I love behind and went back to school. The odds of someone thinking to inform me of a death or serious injury are slim. And, well, I suppose I could have stayed.
I'm still not sure I made the right choice.
Posted by ReikoDemosthenes (Member # 6218) on :
aww... (((Ali)))
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I miss my music, but it was a lot of work too.
My dada and I had a really good conversation a few weeks ago...the kind of conversation you remember the rest of your life, really.....adn he said a lot of things that reminded me of some things that use to matter a lot to me, but that I had deliberatly left behind when we moved to MA.
So I have been thing about these things....mostly about music, really....a lot since then.
Kwea
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
EL: What made you decide to leave?
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
Kwea...I also left my music behind...I used to play the piano. Played for some 8 years. When I started college, I was playing in some restaurants and places like that. Things happend and...I didn't play anymore. Sometimes, when I look at a piano, I feel my fingers itch...but I never played anymore, for almost 9 years, now. What instrument did you play?
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I also left my music behind, as well as my athletic endeavors. I am not even sure why. I just did a lot of things well, but not really, really well, and could never commit to one thing. It makes me sad in some ways, but now I am a teacher, and all the things I know are funneled into that, and into being a parent.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I played flute, and was quite good at it. My band in high school was national ranked, and we played college level music, both marching and concert.
I was first chair, and very good, but I gave it up when we moved here because my father said he wouldn't pay for me to learn something that didn't pay.
Also, I didn't want to move here, and playing remminded me of all I had left behind.
Now I miss it, but when I think back about how much time I spent on it, I wonder ifit was worth all the sacrifices I made for it in high school.
Kwea
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Average salary of concert musicians in major symphony orchestras is >$100,000/yr.
I earned pizza money one night playing drums on a street corner in LA.
That's just two examples of how people can make money with music.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Yes, but at what cost? In most major cities, $100,000 isn't as much as it sounds.
I showed him though....
Now I work for the same company he does, making crap for money....
I guess I showed him that you don't have to be a musician to starve...
Really, that is part of what the conversation with my father was about. We were talking about Jenni and my plans for the future, and out of the blue he started being really serious about our discussion...which isn't the way we usually deal with each other...lol....
He said that over half the people he hired at JC Penney were musicians who didn't make enough money and had to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. He said that half his minimum-wage workers had music degrees...and he had wanted better for me.
And then he said that he was sorry for badgering me about finding a profession, because is he hadn't been such a hard ass about my music, I would have a profession.
I was amazed....for two reasons. First, that he had thought all that out...and second, that he had brought it up at all.
I told him the truth...that he couldn't have MADE me give it up, and that there was no blame for any of it. I had chosen to give it up for a number of reasons....and most of them had nothing to do with him, or his refusal to pay for a Music degree.
But then I said thank you, because I knew how hard it must have been for him to say that.
My dad and I have had a rocky relationship...not abusive, or anything like that, just touchy at times. So the last 7-8 years have been a great thing, with me making the effort to get down there and spend time with him, and with him trying to understand his very strange son...lol...
A lot of the "touchiness" was my fault, due to the way I treated him, and other people, when we moved out here. To be honest, I don't know if I would have been able to forgive him if he had done the same things to me that I did to him when I was younger. I was miserable, and made everyone else miserable as well.
When I got married, I asked him to be my best man....becasue despite all our differences, there was never any doubt in my mind that he was doing those things out of love for me. He always wanted the best for me, even when I didn't care at all....we just didn't see eye to eye on what was best...
So I have made some sacrifices, sacrificed some of my favorite things in the world....but it has all been worth it, I guess.
As much as I hated MA, I met my wife, and became best friends with my parents here. I have nieces and a nephew here, and a lot of friends.
Kwea
[ October 09, 2004, 10:30 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Kwea, My son is a gifted guitar player. We walk a very fragile line with him. We are excited about what he can do but we want neither to push him nor discourage him. He wants to be a professional basketball playeing rock star. I know he could make a bundle of money as a session player in Nashville or somewhere if he keeps it up, but never be a basketball pro. Yet I can't tell him that. (Oh, he would be OK being a Red Sox player, too)
Anyway, we are trying to avoid what your dad did, but not do what we see soccer parents do. We try to find a happy medium, but then you always wonder, "but if we had pushed them just a little harder..."
With my daughter it is easier. She tells us to kiss off, basically, when we attenpt to direct her.
Egads.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Kwea, I had/have the opposite experience with my parents.
They wanted me, desperately, to go into music (classical singer- I had been quite successful at it). I had never considered it until the year before choosing a Univerisity. Never once in all my music I had done had I said "I want to be a musician" and suddenly, I had to choose.
Everyone wanted me to do it. Accompianists, Parents, Teacher (obviously), and yet I had never considered it and I thought it was wrong for me. They would try to guilt me into it, saying that I was essentially throwing away a talent not many people had. It sounds pathetic but it was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. Even after I chose Humanities and Social Sciences they were still after me saying I would regret it. I would change my major. I would end up yet another English Major on the street, jobless. They said I would come crawling back in my thirties and by then it would be all over.
The last time I performed, I was a special guest at my accompianists piano recital. I had written a small bio, saying what I was doing next (this) year, and while I was standing up there she said to the people, "and although Victoria is doing English next year we all hope she will change her mind."
And I had to stand up there in my dress and my makeup and laugh as if it was funny and I was doing it for kicks. I wanted to cry, but I had to laugh.
So now I'm here and the only instrument I have is a plastic recorder, which summons up memories of a glorious innocent childhood while music was still a hobby, and that I can make up tunes on. I love music, but I'm not a musician. Whatever it is people have, I don't have it. Not for music.
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