Excitement and Withdrawal

I miss Spring Awakening and it needs to come back to St. Louis...like NOW! Ok so maybe I need to be patient and let M see it in Ohio before I demand it back here, but I do really miss it a lot. I'm amazed at how attached I got to being a Guilty One and being a part of that incredible group of people. We already have a trip to the City Museum planned to give us something to look forward to in the near future and we're definitely traveling to Louisville and Chicago to see the show again! Of course, now we all have to work like crazy to rebuild our bank accounts that are now empty from paying for student rush tickets...

So, a group of complete strangers and seeing a show a gazillion times in 12 days made me realize a few things:
1. I want my life and my work to involve music.

2. I don't want to deal with the loss and grief of nursing...not to mention all of the puke and poop and yuckiness...

So, I'm switching my major at SWIC (the community college I go to) to music education and I'm going to be an elementary music teacher when I grow up. I've known that nursing wasn't for me for a long time and it took this musical and these people to make me realize that I have to make myself happy because in the end "the sadness the doubt all the loss the grief will belong to some play from the past" and if I don't put it behind me, it never will be a part of the past and I'll have to deal with it every day.

I think part of the reason I wanted to be a nurse was to help kids who are hurting and are in a time of need. I have always wanted to work with kids. I told my mom when I was about 3 years old that I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up but my personality changed a lot in high school and I thought that nursing would be for me. What I didn't allow myself to realize was that my personality has changed a lot again in the last 6 months and being a teacher is something that I believe the new me would be able to love and enjoy. Someone I talked to today let me know that music teachers are in high demand in inner city schools. If I work in an inner city school, I'm still going to be dealing with kids who are hurting and in that time of need. Music has always been something I've gone to for relief from my problems and has recently been something that I've run to when times are bad so to get to share that with others would make me so incredibly happy.

I'm very relieved to have made the choice and to have my parents' approval on the switch. Now it's just time to decide how I'm actually going to get there. I have to map out my journey and start traveling in that direction. I just hope the road to get there will be enjoyable and when I get there it will have been worth it...

...so how does this relate to the musical? Well...I think it will affect it somehow. M, B, and I had our first finger chat in a very long time and while we really only discussed my love for Matt Shingledecker and flying giraffes, at least we got to chat. Our lives should all calm down soon and we'll be able to get moving on it again. Plus, since I'll be taking music classes, I should be getting plenty of encouragement and ideas for songs...not that a million years of piano lessons haven't done that...but you know.