Nine months ago, I encountered quite possibly the biggest existential crisis of my life. The problem was, I got too much time to think and reflect, being on my wedding leave for a month, and basking during my honeymoon in sunny South Africa. I watched people enjoy their lives, make merry every day, focus more on family and friends than money and I asked myself “Is it possible to live this way? Am I just running because everybody else is?”
It took me a few days to figure out that I needed to dig deep to find what really makes me happy. I decided that I would love to teach kids music - singing, songwriting, maybe even the piano.
The more I thought and talked about it with my husband, the more it made me happy and sure. But I knew I was living in a bubble; I was, like everyone else, going to get back to my job and get absorbed, only to have these thoughts again at the next international vacation money can buy.
Except when I did get back, I found myself more helpless and frustrated than ever before. I woke up depressed, cried every evening and slept cribbing. “Sure this can’t be the way you’re gonna live for the rest of your life, yes?”, I asked myself. I was (am) newly married and I couldn’t start a relationship on a bad note. I couldn’t imagine being a 40 year old mother to talented kids, bitter and unfulfilled. What example am I going to set for them - kids, please don’t live your dreams because mommy didn’t and it’ll hurt her too much to see you happy doing yours? That’s classic Low-Self Esteem.
At work, I felt invisible and challenged in an area that was neither in my zone of interest, nor in sync with my skill sets. You can even say I was trying to *become invisible* - maybe I could continue to make money while nobody cared whether I was working or not. (There are tons of people like that, I fooled myself into thinking I could happily be one of them.)
Teaching wasn’t going to work out. I had no idea how to design classes. I had been out of music for too long myself. What were my creds? Some washed up, has-been, singing-to-my-bedroom-wall musician? I couldn’t even hit notes I could 3 years ago. I quit piano lessons because my highly-accomplished teacher was pushing me too hard! Like hell I was going to convince parents to send their kids to an under-confident musician with only a Berklee College free course as a “degree”! I almost grudgingly accepted to be part of a band, hoping that my love for music might be tickled, hoping it hadn’t left me completely.
If this was not the time to make some major changes, I might as well just have considered euthanasia at 30. I would’ve been the first case of “Kill-me-because-I’m-already-dead”.
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