I am a failure

I read a post today that inspired me to write about something that had been in my mind for a long time now.

I had not really talked about it much, or written about it. I did not feel I could. Now I do.

A few years ago, I had this great, neat plan. I was going to take a year-long orchestra sabbatical to enroll into accelerated nursing school. And then gloriously return to the stage as a classical musician with a BSN. Pick and choose my concerts, work as a nurse on days off… what great life.

Well that all went down the drain.

I was fired in December 2012. I lost my symphony job that I had held for 15 years. It happened a few months after the end of my marriage, of also 15 years.

I also had an injury. My right wrist, pronator tendon, was torn. I could not do anything that involved turning my right hand in. Or out. I could not play. I could not climb. I could not work. Essentially, I could do nothing.

Disaster.

I was scared. Embarrassed. I felt fear and shame that were beyond my ability to cope. I had failed my marriage. I had failed my job. I cried almost everyday, for months. I felt completely lost, in the dark. I had such bouts of panic that the only thing I could do was get out in the street and run. I started running at night, in the middle of the night, just to quiet my mind, get away from it.

I was grieving. Only I did not know it. Because I was in the middle of it.

I had been a musician my whole life. I had played cello since I was 9 years old, and worked in an orchestra since I was eleven. I was a musician more than a mother or even a person. That was my identity.

I had a job which was tenured for life. To lose that job, an orchestral job, for which competition is so fierce, to me was the end of my life.

What bullshit.

So I placed a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen. And mounted my road bike in front of my bed. I had to get up and go to the kitchen for that morning shot of whiskey. Numb the mind. Then get on the bike and start the day. Finish prereq. classes for school. Study, wrist therapy, run, cook, clean, take care of my kids, study more, cry, sleep. Get up. Repeat.

I was miserable. What if I didn't get into nursing school? What if nursing school didn't work? What if I didn't like it?

I guess I just had to have blind faith. Trust. Trust my gut. Trust that there would be light at the end of the tunnel. Or something.

I no longer had income. I was bleeding financially, going further and further into debt. Palpating in the dark. Trusting that something would come out. And the total fear of failure in the back of my mind.

I almost flunk one of my very first classes, pathophysiology and pharmacology. I passed it by a few points, really, it was such a clusterfuck of a disaster. I felt I had no idea what I was doing. Keep going, keep going. My God what am I doing??? Why am I doing this??? What the hell am I doing with my life???? Where the hell am I going???

In the middle of that whole mess, nothing made sense to me anymore. I want to do this. I want to do this. I will do this.

And so I graduated. A year ago now. I was totally broke. What a failure. How on earth could I ever earn a job in a field that was so foreign to me? And where?

My refuge. My peace. Wyoming. The mountains. I studied non-stop before my summer job, and took the boards. I studied in the climb gym in Jackson. They had a space upstairs. And wifi. I studied upstairs. Then went downstairs and did laps. Jason Sloan, then an Enclosure employee, helped me with the routes.

Another friend, Mitch, helped me pay for travel for the boards. Took the boards. Started to send applications everywhere, and rejections came from everywhere. It was a shower of rejections. Loser. Keep going. Less crying, more clicking. Keep clicking. Until I got one call. And another. and I am getting calls for interviews in the middle of orchestra rehearsals. All of a sudden failure is looking pretty sweet.

Lander.

Here I am, a year after graduating.

"Failure"

It made me rethink my life. Appreciate my life. It made me take unknown roads, and realize through these past years that it is actually possible to love my work, where I live, and the people around me who accept me for who I am.

My own truth.