Even as a 5th grader, I knew what my future held.

 

        I knew that I wanted to be a performing musician. I had posters and articles featuring my favorite violinists tacked to cork boards in my room, and I would look at them every day with the same resolve in my heart: I would rise to their level. Fast forward to the end of my sophomore year in college, where questions started to surface; questions that I thought would never cross my mind. I started to entertain the notion that the discontent I felt was perhaps more than just disappointment in myself; perhaps it was unhappiness with my chosen field. My time in the practice room became more of a drudge than a joy, and the music didn’t speak to me clearly anymore.

 

         As you can imagine, it was difficult to accept that my dream had shifted, and all the plans that I had counted on up until then were about to be irrelevant. I didn’t know what to do, where to turn, or even how to tell my parents. Although I wanted to utilize the opportunities I had been given, I couldn’t live a lie. It was time to be honest with everyone, including myself.

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        I was really lucky that my parents accepted my change in heart.

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       Realizing that I wasn’t obligated to be a professional musician for life was one of the most liberating feelings in the world. Browsing careers on the internet turned into an enlightening activity. It was like trying on different dresses and imagining which one would suit me best.

 

       Besides considering what I would do professionally, I immersed myself into other interests.

 

       One day at school, I overheard someone else considering pursuing a Minor in Writing along with her performance degree. Until then, I hadn't allowed myself to consider other interests to sink my teeth into, but I was at a point with music where I needed something else to help me balance all the stress I was experiencing. The idea of pursuing writing made sense to me.

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       Everything that followed happened quickly: I was accepted into the writing program, and began working with other (non-musical) creative people. I loved the feeling of expressing myself through writing. For years, I had been told that music allowed people to express what words couldn't, but the more I wrote and played around with words, the more I found that there was a lot that words could say.

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       My writing classes gave me the opportunity to use the same creative techniques I had developed with music, only in a different medium. I was able to experiment with shaping sentences to convey the exact meaning I wanted, just like when I phrased lines of music. I understood how pitch, dynamics, and tone could impact a performance, so I knew how to read my writing aloud to audiences. My creative knowledge was being put to work, and it was feeding my soul.

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        Additionally, I was given the opportunity to work at the music career center as an intern. Through this experience, I realized how much I had missed using my leadership skills. I knew that it was going to be hard if not impossible to use them in an orchestral setting. If I remained on this path, would I ever get to use them?

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      For those of you who are wondering, I don't hate music; I really do truly love it.

       

    The question is, do I love it enough?

     

       Do I love it enough to spend countless hours alone in a practice room, obsessing over whether or not I played a phrase at a mezzo-piano or piano dynamic? Would my body give out over time, giving me even worse tendonitis than I already have? 

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      Last summer, I began realizing the reality of what my future was going to be if I continued on the path I was on. I would need to become much more comfortable locking myself in a room for several hours at a time. I would need to obsess more (yes, I said obsess, because that best describes it) about musical details. I would need to become comfortable with a lot of things if I wanted to be successful.

 

      Most of all, I saw how precious life was and how I wanted to spend more time with my family, because they are everything to me. I realized I wanted to stay close to home, because that is where I'm happiest and healthiest. 

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      I owed it to myself to do some intense soul-searching. I took stock of my abilities and interests, and whether or not they were all being used in my current state. I remembered the leadership skills that I hadn't been able to use in years of playing in orchestra. I knew that my chances of being able to use them in an orchestral setting were slim, but so were my chances of winning a full-time orchestra job in my hometown. 

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      I'm a big believer if you are passionate enough about something and you pursue it with all your might, you can make it happen. If I really wanted to make music work, I could find a way, but as it was, I was getting more burnt out with each passing day. I didn't think I had it in me to keep pushing myself until I was completely drained.

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      It's the end of senior year, and I still need to figure out my future. However, this is the first time that I've felt comfortable jumping into the great unknown.

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      I would be lying if I said that I felt comfortable with my musical life right now. It's extremely hard for me to transition to this new normal in which music won't necessarily be my main focus. It's hard to not feel guilty after all this time, energy, and money has been put into my education. I know that education itself is never a waste, and I still will be leaving Ann Arbor with a bachelor's degree, but there's a part of me that feels unsettled. I still need to figure out how music is going to fit into my career in the future. 

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      All I know for sure is that I can't continue playing music full-time due to obligation. If I did, then I wouldn't be making real music. I admit that it's very cliche to say this, but music really does need to come from within. 

     

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