I’m Completely Overwhelmed
At the end of August I made a list of Coming Events for Fall 2021. It looked like this:
Middle School in person
Alexander Technique at Boston Conservatory in person+150 hours of lessons
Teaching (in person?)
Performing in person
Coaching
Practicing
Orchestra
Chamber Music
Cross Country
Sunday School
And that’s where I stopped because I was hyperventilating. We used to do all of this, and yes, it was hectic, but it was also mostly fun and filled with personal connections. But, the idea of doing all of this NOW?
Everything is relative, and relative to the last year, this list is unreasonable.
New list:
Mental Health
Sleep
Movement
Connection
I realized that everything in the top list needs to fill at least one criteria in the bottom one (a win for cross country since it covers all of them, including better sleep). With that in mind, we made some cuts.
A friend recently sent me an article on slower living. Ways-to-embrace-slow-living. I had to actually slow down to read it. The idea of seasonal slow down struck me as ironic … just as the weather and sunlight tell us to rest more, we ramp up the activities. No wonder it feels like a struggle.
I am still overwhelmed. This transition is HARD! And there is so much beyond my control (how do you make friends in middle school??). But, looking at what we do every day through the lens of wellness instead of obligation makes for clearer choices.
Some days what we need more than anything is just a little time on our instruments, to connect to our identities as musicians, no matter how tired we are. And some days, I know that’s going to push us over the edge, so we don’t do it!
Yes, I just wrote that. Sometimes we don’t practice.
We need to give ourselves time to adjust. And we need to forgive ourselves if we don’t get to everything we think we need to do.
