Guten Abend, mein Knab…

Today was decent. I felt the need to get myself organized, so to provide myself with that extra boost (that I most definitely was not getting on my own), I signed up for a coaching with the wonderful Berri. She and I talked about my preoccupation with “other things” (like, credit-bearing homework) but it was nice to hear someone who’s not a peer tell me flat-out that I am here to sing, and that’s what’s most important. It’s different from hearing friends say it over and over, and it’s different than telling it to yourself. It’s fact, coming out of Berri’s mouth, and from anyone else you respect and trust.

It’s about getting myself organized, which I did, and planning out rep absorption logically (currently in process). Speaking of which, Paulina just referred me to another sassy Italian piece, so I’m going to IMSLP that shit before I lose my groove. Guten Abend…

In another life, maybe

So I realized upon waking up and reading what I wrote last night, I left a few important things out of my post.

First of all, I realize it’s a pretty personal subject. When I mentioned the vulnerability? It’s kind of weird leaving that last post up, just because it talks about crap I’ve tried my best to not even think about for a long time.

Because let’s be realistic. I sing opera. I have plans for my life, and they’re not all money-making or stabilizing. I’m ambitious and fairly smart and love to read, write, think, and work outside/shovel horse shit/run around with my dogs when it’s not snowy. I don’t fit the typical mold for a significant other and I’m aware of it. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, or having a yen for it. Even if it doesn’t make sense.

And hey. This was a blog for my thoughts, first and foremost. So if I’m thinking about boys and the future, then that’s what I’m going to write about.

But upon further reflection, I almost feel as though I should resign it to fiction. Keep the thoughts of a future with some faceless, nameless gent within the pages of a word document. The idea of jeopardizing my future plans because of some unknown stranger is horrifying. It’s just not worth it.

So ignore my lists and forget the standards. It’s just a silly topic that happens to surface in my mind whenever I see my friends happy in that way. I’m glad for them, but in the more selfish section of my brain I do tend to wonder why I can’t have it, too.

Finally yellow

It’s been my favorite color since I was old enough to know my colors. It’s sunshine. It’s a dandelion. It’s my hair.

And it’s happiness, for me.

I wanted to put that happiness here, for anyone who reads my thoughts. The negativity some associate with yellow should vanish upon reaching this page, because, well, crap. I really dig “happy.”

It’s here. The big eighteen. I’m so old. And in some ways I still feel like I’m three again and sliding down brightly-tinted plastic with my hair static-ed all around my face.

Two years ago, I was going to get my learner’s permit with my mother.

One year ago, I was so insanely busy I don’t even remember what the heck I did. Oh wait, I think I went to musical and ate a giant cookie with purple frosting. Or that could have been the AIDA year. It might have been, because Kiener and Emma were there. Yeah, whatever.

This year, I’ll be in theory and in aural skills and traveling to get pizza with a completely different group of people in a still-new place. I’ll voyage to sing with ladies I respect and admire and return to be initiated in the ways of Student Association.

It’s so different. And I can’t help but think, it’s where I’ve wanted to be and worked to be for the past eighteen years without knowing it. I’m finally here.

Brevity

So I am actually in the process of trying to get some projects that are due in a few weeks out of the way right now. It might seem like overachieving, but honestly, I don’t know when else I might find time to do them. Even today, an “easy” day, so to speak, is going to be fairly active. I’m going to a Chopin piano concert at three later today.

That means I have roughly two hours to get homework completed and out of my “to do” pile, in addition to getting a little more spiffed up than is usual. Currently I’m in jeans and a thermal because it’s pretty chilly.

On a completely unrelated note (going atonal here), my nails are hot pink. Yeah, weird. I haven’t painted my nails in so long, but yesterday some nailpolish got on them by accident so obviously I had to finish the job. They don’t look too bad, but I think I’m going to have to do away with it for piano class. It’s tough for me to play with longer nails. But whatever.

Yeah. So other than being insanely busy and loving every second of it, I am pretty much finding myself chilling with whoever’s around. If I think about it, my schedule doesn’t seem that complicated or intense… to me. But taking a step back, and reflecting? Shows me that, holy crap, I’m running all the time.

It just doesn’t feel like that, because I love it.

And I have a feeling it will all be gone so quickly: already my first month here has nearly elapsed and I feel like I have been here forever (and yet, no time at all). It’s really strange.

But okay, I’m done rambling for today. I have to go work on my creative project for theory. Tatiana’s Letter Scene, here I come.

Hvorostovsky and Renee as Onegin and Tatiana at the Met (2006)

Disjointed, like my thoughts

No, I don’t
want to blog
right now.
No, I don’t
want to do
my work.
No, I don’t
want to sit
in here.
I would rather be at Sibley.
But, I can’t
leave this desk
please God
But, I can’t
slip or slack
dear God
But, I can’t
seem to stop
oh God
I would rather be at Java’s.
Why, I should
crack a book
Italian
Why, I should
look it up
that word
Why, I should
start on my
theory
I would rather be practicing.
Now, I guess
I will try
to try
Now, I guess
is the time
study?
Now, I guess
I’ll go to
sleep… or work
I would rather be making music.

Please, Bach... save me from the tedium

Blurb

I should not feel disoriented and dizzy this early in the morning. I’ve got a cinnamon pop tart in my system and am consuming searingly hot tea but I’m still groggy and I don’t like that. I also don’t like that there’s so much gap time between everything. I want to go, to get it done. I don’t want to disregard the importance of time and waiting and all that crap but come on, I’ve been waiting to reach this stage in my education (in my LIFE) since I was, like, four. Old enough to know what college was and that I wanted to go there and be smart and use it to do something worth it.

Granted, I never thought it would be opera, but here I am.

Still waiting.

Waiting for theory to start at nine thirty, waiting for the day to end so I can begin another monotonous cycle of homework, waiting for the next exciting thing to do that doesn’t involve food and hopefully does involve caffeine.

Waiting, ironically, for fall break to swing around a month from now so I can see my family. So we can laze around for once crisp fall weekend and enjoy the brief time we’re together. The stupid little pleasures of home no one thinks they will ever miss are the ones that turn and twist the tendons of your heart.

But I’ll wait; I’ll wait it out and I’ll work and drink my tea and burn my mouth and wait. It had better be worth it.

This scrawny-looking cat is in fact waiting for me... I'm the only one that likes him at my house :/

What did Brendan tell me? Oh yeah: “Kim, I feel like you’re searching”

*Just a quick note: I wrote this from my cell phone late at night (or, early in the morning) before this past Wednesday. I spent the day with this awesome German I know all day yesterday, so I did not get a chance to type it and post it. But, here it is, unedited and in honesty.  

Brendan texted me tonight, from Waynesburg. Told me about a book he feels I should read. He said, “Kim, I feel like you’re searching.”

  
I feel like I am, too. 

So here is how it is. Here is how I come to be typing– texting, really– forming a blog entry from my phone because I was dumb enough to leave my macbook upstairs, and it’s past midnight: my entire family’s sleeping.

Here is how it is: how I am sitting here sniffling and experiencing mild heartburn, feeling like a complete fool with a temperature.

Here is how it is. How I have come to abruptly halting my reading process and doing this, setting down (temporarily) Don Miller’s Searching for God Knows What.

Miller writes: “…I felt something missing inside myself, some bit of something that made me feel special or important or valued. This thing missing inside me… is something God would go to great length to explain in His Bible. …By trying to find an identity…

Don Miller also wrote Blue Like Jazz, also a good read

I was displaying some of the very ideas God would speak of in Scripture, some of the ideas about being separated from a relationship that gave me meaning, and now looking for a kind of endorsement from a jury of my peers” (Miller 42).

Isn’t that exactly what I have been doing since June, scrabbling frantically around to improve myself, to impress others or receive their attention, simply to feel accepted? To find an identity.

Here I was so worried about making the right impression at Eastman or at work or even on my adventure/excursion that I was completely and totally blind to the fact that I’m obsessed with my image or what people think. Haven’t I trusted God before and never had to worry about it at all? Hadn’t I felt a sense of peace, finally, and an invasive, infectious happiness, a sunshine?

I’ve been trying to find God again, and I think my dip into Spiritualist Central helped concrete my own beliefs and outlooks. It didn’t shake them as much as it could have.

It served to remind me that, without God once again as a fully recognized presence and driving force in my life, my worst and most horrifying fears will be realized and I will fail. God has been with me every step of the way thus far. I know He won’t “leave” me, but I am scared of the consequences. Scared of the thought of evangelism, of losing sight of things, and dumbly, of knowing God’s love as it was meant to be felt. But mostly I’m just ashamed.

I know as a Christian (is that what I am?) I would feel the need to reach others– and to be honest I feel as though that impulse has been with me my whole life. But I’m not good enough to do it, I’ve tried before, when my faith was really strong. Or I thought it was. Now I fall back under the excuse, I’m too flawed, even though I know that’s stupid. But time and again I’ve kind of tried and definitely failed to serve God because I didn’t want to give it everything and fall short, again.

I think I’d want to share news of God’s love. Of an nonjudgmental, unconditional, unrelenting love. I just doubt I’d be a decent spokesperson. Plus it doesn’t help that it feels like, as soon as you tag “Christianity,” all anyone ever seems to see is piety, when (at least in my case) they couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So… how do I go from being “in control” of my own actions to handing myself over to God?

The search is far from over, but I’ve found something at least. Here is how it is.

Pathetic, brimming with shame, and flawed, I figure it’s about time I stop moping around scared and wimpy and be an instrument for God to use. Or, I guess it’s more fitting… a voice for his love.

Must be meaning something

So I think it’s bizarre that, out of nowhere, the urge can hit me to pick up a Bible again. I think it’s strange that my wandering mind will hit upon the inspiration to turn to Romans, land upon Romans 12.

I believe it is especially weird that that’s one particular passage that could give me hope about the future, and confidence in my own outlooks and beliefs about humanity.

More on this later sometime. I’m working early tomorrow and am pretty exhausted. But I do think that it’s unbelievable what can happen when the mind and heart are open and eager, waiting for something to speak to them.

Thoughts while sipping the first mugfull

 

I had a dream that I was sad. That I was left behind. That I was about to die.

The truth is, I am all of these things, however much I press it back into my subconscious during waking hours.

I literally just dragged myself out of bed and have a sip (okay, gulp) and a half of caffeine in my system. I’m still under the last haze of dreaming. But as my mind starts its slow shift back to the waking world, I begin to realize that I’ve stopped analyzing myself lately. Usually I’ll use my blog and journal-like writing to accomplish that. But I haven’t been doing it. I’ve been working, and when I’m not, I’m practicing. (Or swimming… or anything else in a countless realm of things that do not include blogging.)

So I haven’t spent much time reflecting on my own personal balance (yes, Libra reference there). It screws with my anxiety levels when I’m not fully aware of my own mind and emotions.

But now (thanks, dreamland) I know: I’m sad. I’m worried about being forgotten and discarded. And I’m alarmed by the reality that I’m getting older– and even that doesn’t matter because, really, any second could be my last.

My older blog talked a great deal about death. I discussed in great detail how I felt about life and trying to exist and make the most of it. Circumstances that had nothing to do with me ended up having the greatest effect on my views regarding death. I still believe that living all-out is the way to be… the way to go.

But now that I spend most of my time employed, at a job that’s pretty great if you need a job, but not where I want to be for the rest of my life, I have been thinking. What about people that have sucky jobs, that pay like crap? How do they stay happy? Sacrifice time with their friends and family in order to make more?

I figure now that you have to pay for time. It costs money to take your friends out to eat; it costs money to go shopping with your mother; it costs money to go to college. Does it equal out: the happiness versus the time lost to make the happiness possible?

I don’t know yet. I imagine when my cup(s) of coffee has(have) been emptied I’ll say the pleasant times are worth giving up so many hours in order to provide them. This is yet another concrete reason why I know I need to end up with a job I love. A job I live and breathe.

But speaking of work, I have to stop doing this and start getting ready. So, thank you for choosing Tim Horton’s, and have a great day.

Candy coated

This picture makes me almost as happy as the half butter pecan/half cookie dough candy coated medium cone I had earlier this evening at La Via :) I mean... LOOK AT IT!

Growing apart from the people you love is hard.

I read that on a blog tonight. I actually have been on a little adventure online: first from Brendan’s blog, then to two others. All in all I have thought a great deal about what those two talented writers had to say. The following conclusions are mine, but I am thinking. Wheels and clogs are turning. You know how it is. But yeah. Anyway.

Firstly, I need to come to terms with the fact that I Am Leaving. I am going away. It feels like I’m just moving on naturally but the truth is, I am starting a completely new chapter in my life. I need to face facts: my family will be, too. It’s not going to be “normal” anymore. Coming home will be a special occasion. Making plans with me will be one of the last things on my family’s collective mind; they have their own lives to lead. And I should let them. There’s no point in getting upset because they’re already starting to do things without me while I’m working. No point in being sad when they discuss what they’ll be doing or the fun they had. None whatsoever.

Secondly: it’s friend-losing time. Tonight I said goodbye to Brendan for what was probably the last time. I might see him again in two Saturdays, I think. But aside from that it’ll be pure chance if I meet up with him again. Until… until, I don’t know when. Well shit.

Thirdly. That dependent and homebody little piece of myself, that loves to laze around in the sun with a book and chocolately coffee? She’s got to go. At least until next summer. I can’t have her screwing up my intense schedule and workload that will be college or the pre-college theory studies I still have to slog through. And when she leaves, she can take the desperate, bored, miserable chunk of me that seems to weigh me down with every mistake I’ve ever made. If the blog-surfing tonight taught me nothing else, I’ve learned, been reassured, really, that the most horrifying circumstances can be forgiven.

I’m not alone in royally screwing myself up. I’m not alone in obsessing, or trying to distance myself from people so they don’t reject me for the self that I am. I’m not alone in trying to maintain a relationship with a god that no one else seems to openly talk about or really, seriously depend on and love.

You know, after a while, it’s hard to be positive if the tenuous strains of faith you had are still there. Reading about other struggles with faith (and the growth of such relationships with God) gives me a little boost. It’s nice to know others share similar plights, just as it’s nice to know that they pulled through just fine.

Anyway; that’s all I have for tonight. I should have been sleeping two hours ago, but… yeah, I went out for ice cream and it was awesome. Ice cream is another reassurance. It’s says, “No matter how crappy you might feel, I am delicious and pleasantly unhealthy. But I do have dairy (so look on the bright side), and sprinkles up the wazoo (oh yeah baby). Oh no oh no, I’m melting… better hurry up because whatever your problems are, I will be here. Until I’ve been completely devoured and made the day infinitely more wonderful for you.”

Always free

Here is what I think college will be like. I think it is going to be a lot of work. I’m going to get migraines again (I already had one the other day for the first time since I think yearbook ended). I am going to stress endlessly and probably overdose on caffeine and most likely will stop blogging for a while because I’ll be so insanely busy.

But I am going to enjoy every second of it. The long hours, constantly pushing myself. The eventual improvement that will hopefully follow.

Heather said outright, “They’re going to take you down a few pegs.” She means emotionally, musically, and mentally. Not ego-wise, I don’t have a problem that way. But everything I’ve ever been taught or thought I was doing correctly or well enough? No, they’ll fix me. And that was my reply: “As long as they’re planning on bringing me back up and higher, I’m totally fine with that.”

I am ready for this massive change. Not too eager: I love life, simple as it is right now. But I’m prepared for something bigger, something on a more serious and intense scale. Something I’ve been waiting for all my life.

At five years old I wanted to be a country star with a hundred horses and side jobs as a firefighter and ballerina. But even then I knew that my existence couldn’t be a simple marriage, children, and steady nine-to-five job. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! I almost envy it now that I know I probably won’t have it. The simplicity and basic motions that lead to a challenging and extraordinarily life-filled time here.

But I have come to realize that those probably aren’t going to be mine. Marriage wouldn’t be so bad: I like the tradition of it. The family that comes from it and the life two people can build together. I’m too much of my own person to share it with someone like that, though, I think. I like to be in charge; I want to have control over what I’m doing, with my body, heart, and career. A husband would really screw with that. Besides, the only guys that would be willing to stand up to me (or stand with me) on a romantic plane are the toughy-toughs: but the guy who believes he has a chance at leading me around anywhere is smoking the good stuff. Or delusional. Wimpy boys aren’t any fun, and the regular guy (if there is such a thing) seems to find me intimidating. But maybe, who knows, if there was someone who didn’t mind my lifestyle and let me do what I want, without being a complete pushover… oh well. It bears thinking about when I’m older. As does the thought of kids: but seriously? With what I hope is my career during the kid-bearing ages? Yeah, right. I’ll let Meeshie have the children, and I’ll be the best damn aunt anyone could contemplate.

Speaking of careers, if all goes as planned I’ll be singing. Singing then teaching, or singing and teaching. But either way I’ll probably be traveling. Maybe I’ll take classical music to third world countries or something cool. Who knows? But from a very young age I was aware that there would be different things in store for me. Whenever I thought about staying in a small town and having kids, maybe running a little business (pizza-making? a bookstore? cafe?), it just felt awkward. Like something was telling me, good try bud, but not in this lifetime… at least, not until you’re very, very old.

All the same, I want it and I don’t want it. I see the beautiful home my parents have, I know of the happiness my mother found in the early years of her marriage (up until my sister and I entered the picture, anyway. ha ha) and I know that the job security and a pleasant home can be a wonderful thing. I just don’t know if they will be mine. Anyway, all this rambling comes to one conclusion: college will be the start of something big, something magnificent and bright and wonderful. A vibrant beginning to an adult life that will make me who and what I was meant to be. Sempre libera.

Where under the jacket

My sister just wanted to know, “You know how Harry’s always pulling his wand out from under this jacket? Where does he keep it?”

The truth is, I don’t know. Where under one’s jacket would there be a place to hold a wand? Is there a lined, inner pocket for that sort of thing? Specially made Muggle jackets for wizards, with little storage pockets? Or maybe he just shoves it in his jacket and hopes for the best.

I don’t know. And this was an entirely pointless little bloggity blog because I’m tired and want to write but don’t know what to write about.

That’s all for tonight folks. I work at 6:30 am sharp tomorrow morning and get off at three. Despite a nap when I got home from Tara’s I am exhausted and the last little dregs of a migraine are still nagging at the back of my skull. It’s freaking humid and disgusting out, but I plan to go and try to sleep in the soggy oven that is Western New York. Blercdhchgh. (That’s a revolted and nauseated noise, by the way.)

Anyway. To insomnia. Have a good one.