In Bitter Hindsight

Well, it's March 6. Exactly one year since my arrival in Austin, Texas.

It hasn't been easy, and there were many delays, but at least now I can survive. Barely. I'm hoisting myself out of the ditch. Life after grad school has been one ditch after another. Laid off in Kansas City, unemployed in St. Louis, holiday cashier-jockey doormat, substitute teacher doormat, unemployed doormat, doormat, doormat...

I realized the other day, with more than some bitterness, that pretty much every chapter of my post-graduate life has ended with me escaping. No success, no closure, no victory of any kind... just... escaping. Fleeing. Running away with my tail between my legs. A series of bad positions which I somehow managed to slip out of. I never got any release, I just... went away.

Including Bowling Green, actually. I never got a word of redemption from the wake of that shitstorm. No affirmation, no restitution, no vindication. Hearing about honors bestowed upon those who deserve far less has reawakened old resentment, keeping abreast of BGSU news, reviewing composers' personal websites... Staying informed and "connected" has its pros and cons. But Wednesday, I almost snapped with almost no provocation. I had the overwhelming desire to return to the College of Musical Arts with a red lightsaber in hand.

I have bad dreams. A little too often. Not frequently, but often enough to realize that I'm actually hurt in some way. I was never a proud man, never one for ego, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't affect me. Being kicked around like a little bitch everywhere I've lived. Kicked around until I find the opportunity to run away--always without turning things around in my favor first, without so much as the ability to leave on satisfying terms. Never a victorious departure, just a survivalist flight to hopefully greener pastures. Every time. Borderline defeat, every time.

Looking back, it seems like everything went wrong. But the people didn't have to be such pricks about anything. Oh, the people... I haven't forgotten...

It's not that I hold grudges. It's not that I can't "let go." It's that sometimes memories come flooding back to me. Memories, feelings, feelings of memories, memories of feelings. I'm not even harboring malice towards individuals; it's more like a general resentment towards my life itself, bitterly ruing the way things happened. Sounds foolish, I know. It is folly to regret. I don't think it's regret I feel, necessarily, but certainly a bitterness. A feeling of lost time.

This feeling of lost time has been made all the clearer to me by examining the past twelve months of my Texas life. It was turbulent from the start, and any progress was slow-going. So why am I so angry this week all of the sudden? Somehow, I am going to achieve some sort of catharsis from all of the shit from the past... I don't know, seven years.

I deliberately fell out of touch with all of my professors years ago. Maybe it's my mistake, but I just can't bear to email Dr. Gooch (or anyone else) to tell them what a failure of a life I've lived. I'm sure my teachers would rather assume that their students all went off to bigger and better things in music.

I don't know what I expect to accomplish by blogging about this. Just making a note that I got here exactly one year ago, and that I don't feel at all successful.

So a year as slipped by. I sincerely hope that I find myself in a fulfilling and successful situation before another year passes. And if I am still working here by the time March 6, 2012 rolls around, I'd better not be complacent about it.

Partly I'm sour because I lost another piano student. It was the old guy with Alzheimer's. Kind of challenging to teach somebody something when they don't have all their faculties. But I need all the financial help I can get. Tonight, at work, I found myself riding in an elevator with a dead body on a gurney. A paycheck is a paycheck, I suppose, but... I'm a musician, God damn it.

For some reason, I seriously, thoroughly, deeply fucking hate BGSU right now.