An Education in Priorities

This summer has been one of the hardest few months I have gone through in terms of motivation and inspiration. What started as a victorious period of moving to my dream house, finding and paying for my wedding venue, writing an award winning show, and working 60+ hours a week, has ended with struggling to make my own deadlines and feeling musically stifled and nowhere near prepared for the year ahead of me.

My Senior Recital, an hour long concert of original music that I have to organize and execute in order to graduate, is completely behind schedule. By now, I should have had at least half (if not all) of it written and I should have at least started notating it for performers. At the moment, I have planned out my vision for the program as well as themes and ideas for each piece, but not a single note has been written down. This is terrifying.

Meanwhile, I'm putting a lot of attention and effort into Post-Graduation planning (future job/career/wedding/home decor/etc). I think this is partly because it's actually easier to do with the help of Pinterest and hours of watching "Say Yes To the Dress", but I can't help but feel I'm distracting myself from priorities right now.

Perhaps this is why I am so anxious to get back to school, even with it being my sixth year of undergrad. I miss the structure of class every day and dedication to just studying music. I miss deliberating over compositional theories and essays and texts about "how to art" and I miss the homework piling up at the end of the week. I miss coming home from a long day to my little apartment and getting out all my anger and stress by writing or singing at my keyboard. I miss having my mind repeatedly blown by the wisdom and humility of my professors who I consider some of my best friends.

As excited as I am to finish school, I don't think I ever want to stop taking lessons and classes in my field. There will always be room to improve as a pianist and composer and singer and violinist and I still have time to learn to dance and play guitar and clarinet or saxophone. I never want to stop learning and dedicating long hours of my days to improving my musical skills, and I know that if I continue to do this, I'll always be improving as a composer and an artist as well.

School starts two weeks from Tuesday. Until then, it's time to get to work writing my senior recital and making it the best show anyone has ever seen. Bring it on.

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