So continuing my household purge, I’ve managed to have a few epiphanies I’m ready to confess…
I will never play bassoon again.
I’m so sorry. This has taken me 14 years or so. I thought it was for me. I wanted it to be for me. I almost killed myself trying to do it, and came painfully close (maybe one year of conservatory doesn’t equal “almost” but man it felt close). I never really recovered after a medical problem forced me to take off a long time… I was really good. I could feel it when I didn’t practice for a few days, the difference was actually tangible in my muscles and joints. After not playing for the weeks it took for the wounds to heal properly, listening to myself became more excruciating than any physical pain I’d felt. I put it off. I no longer loved it. And I was petrified that everybody else heard the horribleness that had crept into my playing as well, as if I didn’t have performance anxiety to begin with. So I dropped it.
“But some day I’ll get back to it and play casually, like in a community orchestra or WW5 or something. Yeah.” This idea has kept the bassoon in its case, beside my piano, for 13 years. I can’t fit in 10 minutes a day to pound on the piano for fun and stress relief – something that I was never emotionally tied to, requires no reeds or reed making, and can be done on any piano. So I’m going to pick up the instrument that mistakenly defined my identity and worthiness as a human being for 8 years (that I abandoned, after great expense to those who love me) and tootle casually on a store bought reed? I am more likely to successfully moonwalk. On the moon.
So I’m letting it go. I’m working with a former instructor who is helping me find a more appreciative and actively musical home for it. The poor thing deserves better than to sit in a psychologically torturous position in my dining room. It is a part of my past, and I am finally comfortable accepting that it will not be part of my future. Now the relief is the tangible feeling, not the dread.
Bling is not my thing.
In my youth I wore a ring (or several) on every finger that would hold them. I had more charms and necklaces than anybody I’d ever known put together. I had two large, grownup sized jewelry boxes (full) by the time I was 15. I am the only girl on my fathers’ side and inherited a stunning amount of stunning jewelry. My father delights in finding unusual and beautiful natural stone jewelry to bejewel his darling daughter. I don’t think I have ever intentionally parted with a single ornament. I still own the plastic glow in the dark eyeballs that were awesome to wear at Halloween when I was 13. I have an advent calendar worth of Christmas earrings. I have the bracelet my cousin made in her college art class. I have the paper and glitter string earings I made when I was 11. I have a problem.
Ok, some (unmatched, broken plastic, paper) can be put in the trash. Some (gem, heirloom) I actually wear on special occasions (at least once a year, “Tuesday” is special enough to qualify). And I’ve got my “staples” which I put on sometimes and wear for weeks on end – small, simple, sentimental things. But the bulk – the huge hippy earings I specialized in as a teenager, almost all the bracelets, the clashy but fun shell necklace – are awesome pieces for someone other than me. Goodwill won’t take earings (the bulk of what needs to go). Freecycle even failed. I was close to pitching the excess glitter, but it seemed a waste of perfectly good shiny.
This morning I found Indigo Rescue who has an annual donated jewelry sale to support their animal rescue efforts. This is perfect. Jewelry I don’t wear will no longer be in my house, it will be enjoyed by other people, and puppies and kittens will be saved. Talk about universal warm fuzzies. I can pare down the collection to the pieces that truly matter to me, eliminating three of the four jewelry boxes I have. I’ll no longer make us late to the opera because I can’t find the matching earring to the set I last wore 12 years ago amongst the rest of the jewelry box noise. Did I mention saving puppies and kitties?
I have a Shawshank Library.
I’ve sold all the books I can at Half Priced Books ($85, chaching). I’ve donated all the books that Goodwill would take. I’m left with a collection of books that, while I appreciated and enjoyed, I’d rather not own, but couldn’t find a new home. Local libraries aren’t that interested. But they match the requested reading list of Book ‘Em, a Pgh based charity that sends reading material to prisoners all over the country. Self Improvement, How-to’s, Religious, Language Learning, Children’s, and Technical Non-fiction. Perhaps it belies the underlying problem I’ve been having – I’m feeling trapped and have an intense desire to better myself in an attempt to escape. Or it’s just what’s leftover after a year of purging. Either way, that’s at least two sets of book shelves I don’t have to feel icky about not dusting anymore. I can instead feel icky about not cleaning the blank floor where they once sat.
Bit by bit, the bird dismantles its nest so it can fly free.
