This one is about regret.
It’s been years now and somehow I still feel it, maybe that’s how you know it was supposed to be your calling. Seems to me that the concept of a calling is on the same level as a soulmate– something whimsical that our culture would have you believe the universe laid out for you before you were even born. Probably not real. More likely something that you’ve just decided to commit yourself to, through good and bad, universe be damned. You convince yourself every day that it’s meant for you.
Maybe the regret is just another way your mind is letting you know something about your current life isn’t quite right.
I was very musical from a young age, and that was the only thing that has ever truly felt right. My parents signed me up for piano lessons at six years old, with a nice elderly lady Mrs. M, who lived down the street. It would take less than 10 minutes to walk there after school from my parents’ house, and I would go once a week. One time the family cat followed me on this walk, unbeknownst to me. I found out later that he ended up scaling a neighbor’s garage halfway along the walk to avoid an audacious dog…Zeno (the cat) ended up being fine and lived to be 18 years old, so don’t worry.
Playing the piano made me feel alive and I would forget everything else while I was practicing it. It was a puzzle I was always working on, and after some time went by, it started to feel like part of who I was. My fingers buzzed with the muscle memory of my favorite tunes, and I couldn’t wait to get home from school to tickle the ivories. Why is that phrase so cringey? Whatever, we can move past it. My dream job as a child was to be a piano player at Nordstrom’s.
I put in the hours and became a decent player. At 15 years old, I was playing Beethoven, Chopin, Bach, not to mention my favorite, Scott Joplin. I was obsessed with learning ragtime, and even performed ragtime tunes at a couple social events.
I had just gotten to high school and spent most of my time on coursework, running on the track team, or rehearsing band on the french horn (I also played the french horn). Wintertime came on quickly, and a dense depression hit me like a ton of bricks.
I don’t know exactly what went through my head the night that I cancelled going to see Mrs. M. But I remember what I was wearing (black skinny jeans, blue top, gray sweatshirt), we had made a frozen pizza for dinner (DiGiorno’s), and I burned my tongue. My hands were also very cold and partially numb (I’ve always had horrendous circulation). I don’t remember if I called to cancel or if I just didn’t show up. But after that, I didn’t play the piano for a couple months, the motivation was just gone and it felt like giving in would be a failure. Calling Mrs. M to apologize would be embarrassing, so I never did.
Why is it so hard to admit you were wrong? This is the same feeling I experience whenever I’m in an argument with my partner, and while the reason for the argument might be inconsequential, the course of the spat always goes the same way. We pick sides, we build up our fortresses, and we hide in them until forfeit feels more dangerous than delusion. Meanwhile, backing down could save us from unnecessary hostility and isolation but our minds are steadfast in the dark ages. Sometimes being human doesn’t make any sense at all.
Over the past 15 years I’ve gone through phases where I’ve played the piano for a few weeks, then not at all. It hasn’t felt the same since then, just something hollow that used to belong to me and now doesn’t. In daily life, I rarely play music these days, and it’s something that’s missing but I can’t stick with it long enough to improve. I still play at the level that I did when I was 15. I don’t learn new things as easily as I did back then, and I’ve lost the joy of figuring out the puzzle every time my fingers touch the keys.
I guess I should clarify that the “calling” I referred to was not to become a piano player at Nordstrom’s, rather the hobby in general. It may seem unrealistic that playing an instrument (or lack thereof) could have had such a profound impact on my life. But how often do you find something you’re capable of doing, that you own because striving for it defines who you are and what you want to be? I’ve never felt it since.
I would play when I was happy and music would radiate through my hands. I played when I was sad, and felt comfort. It’s not lost on me that the importance of this skill was partially to fill a void for a lonely kid, I struggled with social anxiety and often retreated to be on my own rather than socialize. Piano was a security blanket that brought me calm.
While this may sound like the most first-world story you’ve ever heard, I think the feeling of regret is something universal, and it doesn’t really matter what causes it. We still feel shitty, and we let our imagination tell us that by not carrying out an alternative reality, we’ve let ourselves (or someone else) down. How to free ourselves from this?
Have you experienced regret that’s stuck with you?
Thanks for reading,
Victoria