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A good old-fashioned quarter life crisis

I have known what I wanted to be my whole life.  I have had such strong conviction in my chosen vocation that at times I felt trapped or smothered by what I felt was my lot in life—to be an opera singer.  Throughout school, I envied my friends as they struggled with what career path they would choose, jealous of the mystery and excitement that lay ahead for them.  I envied, too, people embarking on careers that I felt I also possessed an aptitude for.  But no no—I am an opera singer, and to be an opera singer, one must give one’s whole self to the craft.  That may sound melodramatic, but it is true.  Now, at the age of 26, after two degrees and sitting pretty on a mountain of student debt, I’m not so sure.  

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It was during my Masters that the first pangs of doubt hit me.  Until then I had always been the best.  Hands down.  Every time I stepped on stage I felt more and more sure of that.  Yes.  This is great.  I’m great.   But then I wasn’t.  Other, better singers, my very talented friends, were cast instead of me.  Less talented people with more important teachers were given roles I knew in my heart I deserved.  Affirmation was no longer flying at me in a constant stream, and for the first time—at 22—I questioned whether I was doing the right thing.

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But I didn’t really—because really questioning myself, and my choices, meant opening myself up to an amount of vulnerability and uncertainty that I was sure I could not cope with.   I had been told for years that you could only succeed at the thing I wanted to succeed in if you were 1000% committed.  If there was any doubt in my mind, I clearly didn’t want it badly enough.  So I pushed those doubts away and convinced myself that if I waited it out, I could work through the doubt, and that eventually I would get what I was due.

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The first time I said, out loud, that I thought performing might not be for me, I immediately burst into tears.  I did not have a lot of (or any) personal context for wrestling with my identity.  We are supposed to get all that out of our systems when we are young and resilient.  

Now I am old and set in my ways—how am I supposed to figure this out NOW?

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Of course I know that I am not actually old, and that it is never too late to change who you are or start the life you were always meant to have.  That doesn’t change that fact that, at the ripe age of 26, this is all extremely unsettling and I am grappling with a dangerous feelings-cocktail of failure, fear, regret, shame, and disappointment.  But amidst all those feelings there is also a sense of relief.

 

Maybe the suffocation I felt at the lack of options due to my inevitable road to operatic fame was really due to the fact that I wasn’t really listening to myself.

 

Maybe I was letting my desire to be impressive and special and quirky, mixed with some natural talent, dictate what my vocation should be.  

 

Maybe.  

I am by no means quitting—I really am quite good, it would be a waste— but I have become more comfortable with redefining the role music plays in my life.   And I have to say, in the past few months, as these new feelings have begun to calcify, I have become a better musician.  I have stopped trying to sound the way other, more successful people sound and I have released myself from the pressure and the expectation that I achieve certain things by a certain time.  As I have gotten out of my head, and out of my own way, I have allowed myself to just enjoy singing.  Maybe if I get out of my way enough, I will get so good that I do make a career out of it.  But probably not.

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The prospect of a whole new, undiscovered road ahead of me, and the opportunity to explore some of my many other skills (I told you, I’m the shit) is unnerving.  It is also thrilling.  So, I am still in the deep dark hole of what can only be described as a textbook quarter-life crisis of an extremely privileged individual… but I think I can see the light.

© MacKenzie Covington - The Champagne of People - April 2018

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