tower grove

This morning, Reader, I write to you from the little balcony just off my room in my new Tower Grove apartment.  This past weekend, I moved in with my college roommate / best friend and can I just say that I've slept better in the last 3 nights than I did the entire month I was living with my parents?  I've been sleeping way better here.  Maybe there's a connection, maybe there's not... I'm just sayin'...

This morning's topic?  Transitions and how much they suck.  There's no getting around it.  They're just hard and you feel like there's no control and that you're just stabbing in the air, only to realize later that you are in fact making decisions out of anxiety, driving not only yourself but everyone else around you insane.  And I am not one who can easily look at a seemingly hopeless situation, let it go for awhile, and come back to it with a fresh perspective.  I used to be able to do that... when I was in the familiar and comfortable environment of school, consistently validated by my surroundings and goals.  Out here in the wild, it's completely different... a whole new ballgame.  And I'm still trying to survey the landscape.

But in the last month, I've also realized some pretty amazing things.  For one thing, I can make it.  I can do this life thing and I don't have to be in an academic institution or be married to feel secure about myself.  In the process of throwing myself out there in a number of different directions, I've successfully acquired 5 new piano students and an accompanying gig for the choral program of a private high school.  I signed the contract yesterday, a contract that will bring in roughly a quarter of my income for the year.  And I have an interview with two more potential students tonight.  God is so good.

The other important thing I feel like I maybe, sorta, kinda have started to learn is something else touched on in the movie Eat, Pray, Love.  I've been a workaholic all my life... I learned it from the pro.  It's not that I don't know how to rest.  It's that I have to feel like I've earned it or be told that I can take it.  Americans get told, "You need a break" and they say to themselves "Ok, now I will go take one."  (Or they tell themselves that they need a break... only after they've worked themselves into a sickness).  The Italians get told, "You need a break" and they say to themselves "I know.  That's why I'm planning on taking one at noon."  They call it dolce far niente:  the sweetness of doing nothing.  And when you're not in school and you're pasting part-time work together, there's a little more time for nothing.  Sometimes you're forced to take it.  I feel as if maybe, just maybe, the flakes of "need to, have to, gotta go, I can't" are starting to fall off.  My roommate Halley is so good at this:  the girl is a pro at doing nothing and not feeling like she had to earn the right to do it.  So I'm glad I'm living with her again, especially now that I'm not in school.  I think she will probably be a fantastic teacher.  It's a new way of learning to love myself and I have to say, I'm not always quite sure what to do with it.  But most of me just wants to embrace it.