All of Me

I feel incredibly sad right now. Borderline angry. Mostly just sad. I just got home. I've lost all my energy. I just want to curl up in bed and cry myself to sleep. I don't want to go to work. I want to leave my son at preschool.

I just went to the church building to play the piano. I regularly play the same songs over and over. The song I've primarily been working on is one I learned during my teenage years. I loved the song, listened to it all the time, and finally sat down to deconstruct it note by note. Although I practiced it a lot, I didn't practice it slowly. As a result, I ended up adding my own notes, omitting too many and the tempo wasn't consistent. To one unfamiliar with the song, it probably sounded just fine. Yet I noticed spots where improvisation took over, as well as slurs, bumps, and incorrect keys were pounded. Likewise, there were spots I was completely unaware that I was playing it wrong. I was just happy to finally show off my piano playing skills to my friends who also knew this song (some of which were also the ones who pointed out my flaws).

Once I got married, the amount of time I spent at the piano dropped dramatically since I was hardly around one. This song I once loved I could now only play two lines from memory two years ago. Since then, I've pulled it out more regularly and just kind of dinked around with it. As the familiarity came back I immediately started playing it faster.....and then a little bit faster. Until suddenly I was playing it just as quickly as I did at 16 years old again! Strangely enough, my fingers were also playing the notes the same way I did at 16 years old, too.

I slowed down. Reeeeaaaaalllllly slowed down that I almost bored myself with how slow I forced myself to go. I am really trying to retrain my fingers to do this the right way--the way the composer meant for it to be played. But, it didn't seem to matter. I've practiced this one page over 10x each day I sit down at a slower pace, but the minute I start to pick up speed my fingers snap back to how I used to play it.

It is so frustrating. Sometimes I laugh at how interesting it is. But, today I just felt angry. I was in the church building and I just wanted to CURSE SO LOUD!

I finally stopped myself from playing and just left. As I drove home, I realized that the anger wasn't truthfully coming from the piano playing. However, this song brings back so many memories from my youth. I think about my friends, my family, how life was, who I was, and where I am today. I compare yesteryear with today and think about how much I just want to go back. How today just seems impossible. And when these feelings of discouragement arose, I naturally put more passion into my playing. I played harder and faster--messed up more--got discouraged--tried to slow down--insert more emotions--played harder and faster--messed up more--more discouragement. See where I'm going?

I'm sure I could turn this all into some sort of metaphor. I'm just bubbling to the brim with emotion over the littlest things now, and it's almost just as unmanageable as the addiction itself. Someday, my brain will retrain my fingers to play the song correctly. And someday my brain will be better balanced in regards to the addiction. But both, I sense are going to take a reeeeeeaaaaalllly long time and will require me to just slow down. *sigh*