Not with a bang...

And so after 13 years of service to music education, I have decided to close the door.  My teaching career is over, cut short by economics, politics, and some bad luck.  It is truly a sad day, but to a degree it's a sadness coupled with relief - perhaps like that damned 107 year old aunt who kept hanging on as if just to prove the doctors wrong.  She's dead, at long last.

I am still processing all I've lost.  In some ways, as long as I was still a teacher, I had a certain amount of innocence about me.  Funny thing to say about a 36 year old with a penchant for faux-macabre. But it's true, I was still a bit of an innocent.  I worked with kids all day and loved it.  Even up to my last interview I still told some principal what was the solid truth - that I loved working with kids and I loved their life and energy, and the surprises around every corner.  I don't know if that will ever be replaced.  

The sad fact is also that I haven't been the same since all this went down over a year ago.  A little spark has gone out of me, a little of the 'fire' that I mentioned in a previous post has indeed burned out.  And the fire imagery is good, because the campfires that had become so symbolic of our love of trailer life have now also gone out once and for all.  The trailer will be sold - to help make ends meet, and since the luxurious days of month-long summer trips are now a thing of the past.

I'm not who I was.  I held on to the old me as long as I could, and as long as I thought there was a way to get back to that me.  But it really all just blew out of me in a single evening last week.  I had ideas.  I had plans for how to survive like this.  But I suddenly couldn't go on another day surrounded by people telling me why things couldn't happen, and trying to push all that was important to me to the margins of their world, all while paying lip service to how important my work was to them.  I couldn't stand being used and ignored all at once.  As I mentioned in another previous post, I was invisible.  When I went to work, the 'real' teachers left.  I was unofficial, I barely counted.  Last year I worked in 3 schools and was only technically employed by one of them.  I belonged nowhere.  And that really started to make me feel small and insignificant.

So sadly, the fact is I've walked away from nothing.  I had nothing.  And when it came down to it, I finally had to face the fact that it had gotten so miserable that the only thing keeping me hanging on was the freedom of lifestyle that I enjoyed.  What a terrible reason to stay.  Give me credit for that at least - I respected my profession enough to walk away from it when I knew I would become a detriment.

But I've walked away from an ellipsis, or perhaps an empty set of parentheses (great Sigur Ros album, by the way) into a big question mark.  A huge question mark made up of thousands of little question marks, all made out of some bizarre new substance that I don't know how to work with.  I've replaced an empty future with one that is strange and foreign to me, one that I don't know anything about surviving in.  And all at a time when I have very few friends left to help me find my way.  I may be making a huge mistake.  But I just couldn't stand sitting in my life's waiting room any more.  Remember "Oh the Places You'll Go?"  I was so stuck in the Waiting Place.  I may be under attack from question marks right now, but at least I can take some control by answering those questions, and shooting down those little question marks, one...by...one   (and you know it's bad if I'm using gun imagery).
So what will I do?  I'm applying to the Professional Writing and Editing program at UC.  People tell me I'm a good writer.  I guess we'll find out.

I am terrified at what lies ahead.  I am sad about what I've lost, about what was stolen.  And my mood is certainly going to fluctuate in the days, weeks, and months ahead.  At my lowest, I'm going to feel, much like I do right now - lost, disconnected, having cut off my past without a clear future, existing in a void of eternal present, with no context in which to view my life.  But I know there will be better times, times when I will be driven to clear a path into that future, to make for myself the best I can with what I've been given, with a heavy dose of sarcasm, but nary a trace of self-pity.

So as Don Henley sang, "This is the end of the innocence" I suppose.  And maybe the old me is truly dead.  But I have hopes that I can create a new me.  And maybe, just maybe...the new me will be an improvement.

As always, I look to the words of songs for solace and inspiration.  I suppose if I were a deadhead I'd say "What a long strange trip it's been..."  But it's more appropriate for me to look to Spock's Beard and Neal Morse, artists who parted ways and have had to tread new paths for themselves after difficult and life-altering events.  I leave you with the entirety of Spock's Beard's "Rearranged" and a short excerpt from Neal Morse's "Crossing Over".

I have never been in this
For all the fortune and fame
All i ever wanted
Was to be in the game
A part of something bigger
Something bigger then me
Inspired by love of the moment
And being what i was born to be

Sometimes a dream gets wasted
Sometimes it all just falls and fades away
And you may feel you've made it
Then in a flash it all gets rearranged

Deaf dumb and stupid
Or am i just plain nice
Live and let live was a mantra i used
More then once or twice
Thought i had it all going on
Thought i was cruising in 5th gear
In a snap it all went out of control

Everything that was so normal now seemed
So confusing and weird
Now the live and let live
That was so safe in my heart
Didn't feel that sincere
Giving all that i had
Doing right i believed
I'll just go cry in my beer
I blinked my eyes and i had a new life
This much is clear

Sometimes a dream gets wasted
Sometimes it all just falls and fades away
And you may feel you've made it
Then in a flash it all gets rearranged

And what were my choices?
Just go it alone?
That's not what the script read
Stay in the zone?
It's just getting started
About to explode
And when you've reached the top
Don't forget where you came from

Sometimes a dream gets wasted
Sometimes it all just falls and fades away
And you may feel you've made it
Then in a flash it all gets rearranged

______________________

And so the journey starts
Communion of our hearts
He led me to a place beside the water
And as our season grew
The time came when I knew
My path led from among my band of brothers

And I can't describe how hard it was
Or how much we loved each other...

But to go on with the summer
On with the tide
To go on I must surrender
The fullness of my life
And I'll love you forever
But I must say goodbye
To go on I must cross over
A voice says deep inside
Carry on
Carry on
Carry on
Carry on 

So starts the new chapter.  I'm sad and scared.  But it's time.  Steph is with me, by my side as I push the "Publish" button.  I guess that word has a new meaning to me now. Let's do this.

Matt