If you are a part of my life, no doubt you know that I sing and I love to sing. For the past three and a half years, I have been part of the worship team at my church. For the past two years I have been leading the worship team for Saturday nights. What I thought this meant is choosing songs and generally just keeping everyone on track. What it really meant was learning how to run a sound board with no previous experience, understanding lighting and trying to configure it to make everyone happy (impossible), dealing with people constantly showing up late (therefore making practice run late), trying to work with several different people's scheduled absences and still have a full band, rarely getting to take a night off, constantly trying to keep the music sets from becoming stale, and never feeling like I got to be able to worship because I was so busy trying to make it the "right" atmosphere for the congregation to worship.
People often ask me why I didn't enter into music professionally or become a voice teacher or something like that. I briefly thought about being a music education teacher while I was in college but realized that if I tried to teach people (children especially) something that comes so easily and naturally to me, I would end up hating it. I don't know if that is what is happening now, but it sure feels like it. I still love to sing, but no longer feel the desire to ever perform, maybe ever again. It saddens me, but honestly, I love to sing because I enjoy music, not because I enjoy the response of people. I am much happier singing to the radio in my truck than I have ever been performing in front of people. For some reason, it seems that people think that I (and I know other musicians have experienced this too) should offer up my talents just for the heck of it. Well, it is time consuming, stressful, and requires a lot of logistics to figure out. If your neighbor was a dentist, would you expect him to fill your cavities for free? I hope not. But, people expect that I can and will offer up my voice to whatever it is that they want, a wedding, funeral, special service, whatever without any type of compensation.
Okay, so I sound really bitter. I'm not really, just frustrated that no one understands. And believe me, it's not about the money or lack thereof. Though honestly, during the months that my husband was laid off and now paying into COBRA for insurance that I cannot go without, it would have been extremely helpful. But I never had time to get anything done that I wanted to get done. I missed a lot of family and friend events, Christmases, birthdays, weddings (lots of weddings) because I had committed to something and I take my commitments seriously.
My multiple sclerosis has also been a factor of my decision. I was diagnosed in 2011 and have had a lot of ups and downs with it. For the last 6-9 months, I have felt exhausted, beyond exhausted and could barely keep my head up with the stress of working a full time (mentally exhausting) job, the band, and all of my other commitments. I had surgery in December to have my gallbladder removed. That helped some with the constant illness related to my digestion. However, the exhaustion continued. Finally last month, my doctor ordered an MRI and blood work. My blood work came back fine but my MRI showed three active lesions on my brain. I completed two days of a steroid infusion and 21 days of a steroid taper pack. I finally feel like me again though I am still dealing with the after effects of the steroids (weight gain, dry scaly skin etc.).
So right now, I am enjoying my freedom, getting things done around my house, spending time with my husband and family, and all around enjoying life. I have been able to sleep and make it to work on time. I have been able to attend family functions on the weekends. I don't know when or if I will return to singing, but I don't miss it yet. I don't know when I am going to start missing it. Maybe never. Just have to see what the future holds and how God guides me regarding this.
