It's Not Everyday...

There is nothing like being told that you're phenomenal at something.

I always wanted to be a child prodigy.  Doogie Howser was my hero.  Praise from grown-ups has always been quite the drug to me, and as a child prodigy, you not only get constant praise from grown-ups, you can out-do them at everything, too.  For a precocious, competitive, self-centered child, this is pretty much the dream: be awesome and have all others revel in, wonder at, and generally envy your awesomeness.

Sounds a little like a god complex... Hang on while I call my therapist...

I've always had people telling me I was good at stuff, which as I grow older I realize is not the norm for most, sadly.  Now, don't get the wrong idea.  I'm not good at everything.  Things I suck at: most sports... OK, all sports... walking in high heels... smiling on a regular basis... keeping things like closets, dressers, cars, desks - large spaces that accumulate junk - clean... matching pitch on the first try...

Speaking of needing therapy... So, I have a degree in hitting stuff (read: percussion), but regardless of the concentration of my music studies, all music students, to some extent, are required to sing a bit, at least in a little torture experiment they call "sight singing/ear training."  This is a nice 2-3 credit course that lasts the first two years of your undergrad, and it is hell on earth for, well, folks like me.  You learn how to sing in solfege, which is not all the fun that Julie Andrews would have you believe.  You live through exercises like singing scales and intervals and strange 20th century music excerpts with little more to hang on to than the professor playing a chord or two of the key and your own prayers that your voice won't crack, because if it does and you stop singing for a split second, you're going to lose the tonality and have to ask the teacher to play it again, and in my case I'd usually already asked her to play it three or four times and change the key because I really only have about seven or eight notes in my whole range...

I realize some of you stopped reading all that because it stopped making sense unless you've been there.  The fact is, most of you who might have been there don't feel my pain.  I've been a musician nearly my whole life, trained and paid for it, and the pain of standing among peers whom you are in constant competition with and being embarrassed, nay, humiliated, on a daily basis in a way that can only be likened to that "show up to homeroom naked" dream we've all had made me forget over and over again any shred of talent that I might have ever had in any aspect of music which, for a time, I thought to be my calling.  My classmates laughed at me under their breaths, and my teachers kept me after class on a regular basis, asking me what else I might consider majoring in.  I felt stupid and worthless and more sad than any of those people would have ever imagined, and I had never known that feeling to that extent.

But to be told that you are good, great, or maybe even phenomenal at something can ignite the same blaze of emotion within a person on the other end of the fuse.  There's a magic formula to it though: you have to believe it yourself, at least a little bit.

I knew I was bad at sight singing.  I knew it was something that I would most likely never be good at, and that was disheartening enough without it being confirmed by people who actually knew what they were talking about.  There's an episode of Friends wherein Ross makes a list about Rachel, whom he has always loved and who had just recently revealed feelings for him, and his most unfortunate current girlfriend Julie, who's nice enough that they've made the step of adopting a cat together; i.e. things have gotten serious.  The list is to help Ross decide whether or not to end his relationship with Julie and pursue Rachel.  On Rachel's side, things are listed like her selfishness, her chunky ankles, and her status as "just a waitress."  On Julie's side, only one quality: she's not Rachel.  The list, of course, falls into Rachel's hands (way to go, stupid Chandler) and she takes offense, which I used to never really understand.  I mean, by the time she reads it, Ross has already picked her.  He wants her, as he later explains, "in spite of" all those things, just because she's her.  Rachel counters that we all have these things, terrible things that we hate about ourselves that we kid ourselves into thinking sometimes that no one else notices - please, God, don't let them notice - and the moment that we realize that someone does, it can be devastating, especially if these things are being used as reasons to pass us over.

On the flip side, if you think you might be good at something or possess some quality that you think might be, just might be worthwhile and someone confirms that for you, it's like letting being let out of a cage, giving you the freedom to own that strength and do something with it.  It's empowering and enlightening and an extraordinary thing to do for a person. 

So, thank you, sincerely; and I only hope to pass it on.

Comments

[Leslie]

I was sooooo just reading your blog when you commented on mine. I guess the only person that I dislike more than Carrie Underwood is Katie Heigl; put that in your pipe and smoke it! How are you?
I am thinking of moving to Syracuse - I would totally come see you all the time!
Hope you are doing well.

[Winderweedle]

You're out of your cotton-pickin' mind.

[Winderweedle]

Not about moving... About your taste in celebrities... You know what, forget it...