Whys life so hard?
You’re getting older and somehow you ended up in an elementary school band rather than an ivy league symphony.
And now you find yourself daydreaming of Mozart like genius, that somehow passed you by.
It can be very frustrating when we know there’s a symphony inside us, but all we hear are misplaced horns and grating instruments out of tune.
It can be painful when we envision ourselves winding the marble staircase toward chandelier heights only for the cast to disappear before curtain call.
Accept your stage
I’ve reached the stage, but not Carnegie Hall or Broadway.
The fact that I’m less than Carnegie material used to bother me more until I attended a performance there.
That night I had an awful cough I couldn’t contain.
The performer was a renowned pianist who was far from flawed.
Aside from his fingers dancing across the keys, you couldn’t hear a pin drop.
His performance from the perfect stage was perfect.
But I was miserable trying to be the perfect audience member.
I tried to cough only when the audience clapped. Clapping was an art-form of its own.
As it turned out, I couldn’t even cough correctly, much less perform on that stage.
I grew up in a musical family and as a child, I couldn’t stand goofing around when it came time to practice or perform.
Life draws a hard bargain
But I quickly realized wanting perfection and earning perfection are two different things.
Making music can be hard and life can be too.
“Perfection” might come at the cost of other luxuries life affords, such as, having a social life, being married or raising a family.
But maybe it’s the mess, the war-zone of creativity, the uncontrolled environments that polish those true diamonds unveiled in centuries to come.
Our collective angst, the yearning for perfect harmony and uninterrupted beauty keeps us in our seat to watch a painfully amateur performance.
We hope against all odds, that one day, the brightest spotlight will hush the most amateur of audiences with awe.
Every stage counts
Perhaps I had not the talent or the time to turn my rattle into perfect rhythm or my prose into tantalizing meter—but I’ve come to see the beauty of crying babies and ornery cymbals.
I’ve come to realize that it takes just as much discipline to keep making messy music in the middle of life, as it does to hone one’s craft while living alone in perfect isolation.
I’ve chosen the mess. Or the mess has chosen me.
Life is hard, but as long as I live, I’ll long for the stage.
Lovelifelinks.com hopes you continue to love this performance called life.
Remember, you can feel love anywhere. Anytime. All the time.
