I sat at my work desk, just like any other Thursday afternoon. My work week was almost over, and a three-day weekend was ahead of me with waiting on election results, editing videos, playing video games and maybe cleaning my apartment.
Letting out a huff, I flipped through my Spotify playlist to a different song that I had two random measures circulating in my head. In order to get it out of my head, I had to listen to it. But then I started feeling things.
I reminisced back to high school when I was in indoor color guard for a season, probably one of my favorite moments of senior year, to be honest. And listening to this song made me miss it terribly. We didn’t even use Heavenly Father in color guard – I discovered this song 3 weeks ago! It was just how my musically inclined brain worked. I hear certain songs and suddenly I must choreograph an entire color guard routine to them.
Trying to shake off that sudden urge, I switched to something else – an orchestral piece, where the clarinet solo was also making the rounds in my head. My heart throbbed as I listened to the opening clarinet melodic line, making me miss playing clarinet more than I was already. As much as I loved my current degree path, music will never leave me.
They don’t tell you that when you go through a music program. Being invested in music for four years and then to suddenly switch to a different program hurt like hell. There were days I sat at my home desk and cried because all I wanted to do was make music with my friends again. COVID-19 didn’t help the circumstance, however graduate school wouldn’t have played to my favor regardless.
Once music is with you, it’s hard to disconnect yourself. It becomes your life, much like when an athlete plays a sport all throughout grade school and becomes a student athlete for the duration of college. To have it all stop suddenly hurts like a sucker punch to the gut.
And the strangest thing – I miss teaching music. The whole reason I pursued my masters in Student Affairs was because I didn’t want to go teach music. But after helping my friend learn piano and giving her tips and pointers about the proper playing pedagogy, it made me miss being in a classroom more than normal.
Sometimes I wish I could rip myself away from music. I wish I didn’t have second and third thoughts about my future and career path. But at the same time, I love my musical side. I love being able to dissect songs and be able to do dictations in a blink of an eye.
Time will tell what will happen with my musical side.