Libretto

I know what a libretto is now. And, consequently, also a librettist.

I did not know these things a year and half ago. Last February was cold and I knew nothing about opera or singing or anything voice related, really.

Let's start at the beginning. The January before that last February, I broke up with my therapist. For the second time. I should be clear. This was not the second time I broke up with Collette, my wonderful New York therapist, but the second time I found myself breaking off a therapeutic relationship. 

When you say it like that, "therapeutic relationship", it makes the whole thing seem a bit less daunting. Warm and friendly, almost. That was Collette. Warm and friendly, almost.  I had started seeing her about 7 months earlier. Several months and boxes of tissue later, I was leaving her. For much the same reasons that I had left my first - I didn't know why I was doing it anymore.

Instead, I had decided, I was going to spend my time energy and efforts on voice lessons. Something almost most definitely not therapeutic.

What are goals, you know? They seem so situational and relative. What does it mean to have goals for your life? With a years worth of months between my current self and the past one that did therapy, it's easy to see this as the problem.  I didn't know what the goal was. Or how to get a goal. I showed up (usually late). I talked (about?). I invariably got choked up. My time would come to an end. There was no story to it, no driving narrative. Just empty words put in someone else's ears.

Singing is different. The goal is clear, objective. The way forward may not be, but the desired end product is identifiable.

And on the way to the goal, I learn things about myself. About my voice and how to be present. There are bigger, deeper lessons too, broader narratives: that things are often easier than you think they are. That it's the thinking, of a certain kind, that gets in the way. That relaxing is hard. That you never will see your own impact on the world - but that no one can. That some days are better than others.

I learned that it gets easier. That All Of It Gets Easier.

Oh yeah, and

I learned how to siiiiiiiiiing.