Don’t Forget to Have a Life
Who are we when the music stops?
What we do is not who we are
Musical Chairs
As a child, I found the game of musical chairs to be a big stress-fest. Even as an 8 year old I was appalled that the kids who were aggressive and pushy (literally!) were rewarded with a seat, and the opportunity to collectively jeer at the one person left standing alone, befuddled. Guess which I usually was?
Life can feel like musical chairs… we go! go! go! until suddenly something jerks us to a stop and we are caught out, like the proverbial deer in headlights. It is only then that self-awareness seeps in and we think, “Wait a sec…what am I doing - exactly - and why?”
It’s common to self-identify as what we do, a tradition evidenced in surnames like Baker, Archer, Wright, Parker, Miller - no doubt a useful practice back in the day. But most of us no longer live in small, homogenous villages with professions represented by a single family, nor do most of us currently need Hunters, Fletchers, Baileys, or Haywards at all.
And yet it is still routine to see ourselves almost exclusively through the lens of what we do to fund our lives.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is that with any luck we will get to a stage where our professional work ends. Then what?
Doctor’s Orders
“I think we all need to reinvent ourselves about every 20 years.”
Decades ago I was in a doctor’s office; an uncharacteristically philosophical doctor, as it turns out. The context of the conversation is unclear to me now, but I do recall that it was the first time I was stuck in the grief cycle. The doctor was compassionate, dispensing reassurances that come from lived experience.
Our lives are like chapters in a book, sequentially laid out. No reading ahead or skipping around the chapters already written. But, we can direct the story yet to be told.
The idea of reinventing oneself every so often has stuck with me ever since. We make choices, change our focus, learn new skills, try new things, and lo and behold we are happening to life, rather than the other way round.
Mom Wisdom
Another moment of influence came from a fellow mom in an ice cream shop after the middle-school play. As our young performers celebrated their stage triumph, we moms sat responsibly but unobtrusively nearby. One mom had already raised a couple humans before her now middle-schooler came along.
“Make sure you start something for yourself now, before they leave the nest.”
She went on to paint a horrifying picture of a sad woman still in her prime but no longer needed on a daily basis.
At that time I felt safe because I was already a double-agent: dutiful mom half the time, ‘glamorous’ traveling opera singer the other half. It got me thinking about my future anyway. Singing so much of the greatest music ever written was the highlight of my professional life. But that form of music-making stopped eventually.
Thank God it wasn’t all I had.
And so, I am on the other side of a long and wonderful singing career. When that music did stop - abruptly, and sooner than I wanted or was ready for - there was a period of grief, bewilderment, regret, and if I’m honest, a sense of being cheated.
Until I started embracing my new, reinvented self. Of course, it’s rare for a musician to completely stop music-ing (and I haven’t!), but I am relieved to be released from the grind of pay-for-play. I now have more time to reflect on so many experiences and accomplishments. Time to devote to dormant interests. Time and freedom to enjoy.
And You?
In what ways have you reinvented yourself? Was it a big shift, or more subtle? How did it change your day to day? If you haven’t yet, or haven’t in a while, how would you reinvent yourself now? Why? I cannot wait to hear about it, and maybe your ideas will inspire others!
May you live in ease and kindness, with a free heart.
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