the beat goes on.

wHaT a ReLiEf. ha. i put off handing in my resignation for nearly a year. and now that it is done i cannot describe the sense of relief, of freedom, of ease that has come over me. or overcome me. i actually noticed a bounce in my step as i crossed park avenue this morning. a frigging bounce. i'm like some giddy little kid or something.

i'm very good at falling into patterns, at holding steady, at keeping pace. i am very sensitive to the rhythms around me and i will fall into line and obey them. and the anticipation of breaking that rhythm has always caused me to worry, more than is necessary. it's like when i played the violin as a child, the scariest thing in the world was always a piece or a movement that started on a pick up note. always. i could be staring at a sheet of music in some tricky time and key with sharps and flats all over the place and i'd be fine, unphased. but if i was staring at a sheet of music and that first note was a pick up, asking me to hear the beat and then break it, before i had even established it, i would seize up inside, and hold my breath until i was at least two or three measures into the piece. safely past it. i don't know why, exactly, it felt like throwing myself off the edge of a cliff. and of course i would always be fine. i would always hear the anticipatory downbeat and come in on the upbeat and get into the piece and live to talk about it. and of course syncopation and upbeats and surprise rhythms make music more interesting and are, in general, more fun to play. but i could never learn that lesson and let go of that fear, all i could do was start to appreciate that sometimes i would just have to put up with the thing that scared me, just do it and get through it, and trust i would be okay afterwards. i think i looked at this whole "career change" like that and telling my bosses i was leaving was this giant pick up note i was avoiding like the plague. i'm rather laid back and unphased by the rest of this, none of which i have figured out at this point. for now, i will most likely temp and babysit to earn some money for at least the month of march, while i figure out how best to go forward in a way that allows me to earn money while pursuing any or all of my creative endeavors. which is the part that probably should scare me, and would scare most people, but, at some point between 51st and lexington and 50th and park this morning i finally stopped holding my breath, realizing i had safely survived the pick up and gotten into the piece, and now i'm just enjoying all the sharps and flats of this first movement.