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emotionsposting: quitter's talk!
Jan. 13th, 2025 08:59 pmone of my best friends from college is repeatedly calling me out on my flight instinct, aka "something isnt going the way i want it therefore everything sucks time to run away to colorado" or whatever. another one of my good friends has recently stared me in the eye and said "well, why COULDN'T this thing you want happen to you?". so we're gonna dissect that a little bit.
item the first: choir angsting
so. me, as a person. as a hobby, and as my primary social outlet, i do SO much singing. on a regular week this is four rehearsals: quartet, ttbb bbs, normal choir, satb bbs. i am. currently having A Moment about literally all of these and i'm like, well, what if i simply stopped doing all of it.
quartet situation: we just, like, aren't getting better. we get scored at our performances, right? i want us to score better, thereby proving that we're growing as musicians or whatever. i don't know if that's gonna happen. admittedly this week we did kind of make a breakthrough and have been sounding better even by my extremely pessimistic metric (i am the lead weight to my guys' helium balloons). but also. like. bbs, generally, is SO expensive. i have to pay my yearly dues soon, for contest we have to pay for transportation and stay in a hotel (more on this later), we buy music, it's all input and no reward. and i'm tired. i love my guys for the most part but i don't want this to make me hate them and i worry im starting to reach that point.
ttbb bbs situation: see item two, but also, i initially joined that group saying very loudly and aggressively that i was a transgender man and now i'm kind of not that so i'm now playing 4d gender chess where i'm boiling the frog with the old men of the group about how fem i'm being but also trying to be fem enough to be attractive to... well... see item two.
normal choir situation: the music is just too damn hard. it's a really cool program but it's just so HARD. last week i had a panic attack in the bathroom the likes of which i don't know if i've had before? like, i could feel my face going numb from the hyperventilating or whatever. yes i joined this group to challenge myself yes im running away from the prospect of being challenged shhhhh.
satb bbs situation: mostly it's carpooling. so i don't drive, right? rehearsal for this one is in the next city over and it isn't super commutable so me and a friend have had to rely on increasingly elaborate carpooling schemes to get there. this friend is moving in with his girlfriend across town soon and like, the only reason the carpool thing is even remotely sustainable is because he and i live walking distance from each other so whoever we're imposing on that night only has to go out of their way one time. also, this is the group going to international in july and again, EXPENSIVE. and and, i feel like chorus leadership doesn't think i have a lot to offer and specifically, they somewhat obviously like and value my carpool bestie more than me and that's fucking annoying. but also, maybe they like me just fine and i'm projecting. who hecking knows.
all this to say, what if i ran away from everything! one of the local postcollegiate a cappella groups is holding online auditions through the end of the month, they rehearse on thursdays, and they're specifically looking for upper voices. so. that might be a thing i do. screams and cries and dies and
item the second: boy angsting
there is a CUTE BOY at ttbb bbs. this is a problem for several reasons.
firstly, we knew each other VERY BRIEFLY AND NOT WELL in high school. he knows me as my old name, and like whatever, he seems chill, he also seems straight. i feel like i have this image of him in my head from when we were teenagers--a good image, i remember him as being overall a really nice guy and this is def contributing to my feelings now. it's all sort of complicated and i'm not sure how well i'm explaining it because i'm trying to be a little vague.
when i like somebody, i tend to get a little........obsessive. we're friends on facebook from high school, i went on it after we re-met and promptly scrolled far enough to find a video of him soloing in college a cappella (and the original song there wound up being my top song on streaming this year. go figure. it is just a good song on its own... in my defense...) and also discovered some sensitive stuff about his family/medical life and my brain, the part of my brain that i don't have a ton of control over, has just seized on this stuff and is daydreaming wildly so any minute of free thought i get these days is spent playing whackamole with "DON'T THINK THAT, THAT'S WEIRD, STOPPIT".
see also: the gender stuff from above. carpool bestie (who's in all four of my singing groups, we're very normal friends that way) says that he seems "spicy straight" and that my only option is NOT just to ride this out and there's a possibility that i could get this to work out for me.
the thing is, i don't have a lot of experience with dating? i've been in a relationship before, but it was with another genderqueer person, and it was also just unconventional for several reasons: long distance for most of it, we were friends who hooked up and dtr'ed later, i was getting cheated on via badly handled polyamory for most of it, i don't think she ever liked me for me and just liked that i liked her. i don't know how to play the game that normal people play where they nonthreateningly and normally get to know each other and go for coffee and then whoops we've kissed. i want to try, but i'm scared. i don't want to make things awkward, i don't want to scare him away from ttbb bbs because they need him more than they need me, and just. just. i COULD make this work. but i don't know how. i don't even really see myself as someone attractive (in a personality sense, i think i'm pretty enough but also i'm off-putting to be around). what do i do what do i do what do i DO. i want to try, but how the hell do i do it? how do i do it tactfully?
so it's been a weird week here.
item the first: choir angsting
so. me, as a person. as a hobby, and as my primary social outlet, i do SO much singing. on a regular week this is four rehearsals: quartet, ttbb bbs, normal choir, satb bbs. i am. currently having A Moment about literally all of these and i'm like, well, what if i simply stopped doing all of it.
quartet situation: we just, like, aren't getting better. we get scored at our performances, right? i want us to score better, thereby proving that we're growing as musicians or whatever. i don't know if that's gonna happen. admittedly this week we did kind of make a breakthrough and have been sounding better even by my extremely pessimistic metric (i am the lead weight to my guys' helium balloons). but also. like. bbs, generally, is SO expensive. i have to pay my yearly dues soon, for contest we have to pay for transportation and stay in a hotel (more on this later), we buy music, it's all input and no reward. and i'm tired. i love my guys for the most part but i don't want this to make me hate them and i worry im starting to reach that point.
ttbb bbs situation: see item two, but also, i initially joined that group saying very loudly and aggressively that i was a transgender man and now i'm kind of not that so i'm now playing 4d gender chess where i'm boiling the frog with the old men of the group about how fem i'm being but also trying to be fem enough to be attractive to... well... see item two.
normal choir situation: the music is just too damn hard. it's a really cool program but it's just so HARD. last week i had a panic attack in the bathroom the likes of which i don't know if i've had before? like, i could feel my face going numb from the hyperventilating or whatever. yes i joined this group to challenge myself yes im running away from the prospect of being challenged shhhhh.
satb bbs situation: mostly it's carpooling. so i don't drive, right? rehearsal for this one is in the next city over and it isn't super commutable so me and a friend have had to rely on increasingly elaborate carpooling schemes to get there. this friend is moving in with his girlfriend across town soon and like, the only reason the carpool thing is even remotely sustainable is because he and i live walking distance from each other so whoever we're imposing on that night only has to go out of their way one time. also, this is the group going to international in july and again, EXPENSIVE. and and, i feel like chorus leadership doesn't think i have a lot to offer and specifically, they somewhat obviously like and value my carpool bestie more than me and that's fucking annoying. but also, maybe they like me just fine and i'm projecting. who hecking knows.
all this to say, what if i ran away from everything! one of the local postcollegiate a cappella groups is holding online auditions through the end of the month, they rehearse on thursdays, and they're specifically looking for upper voices. so. that might be a thing i do. screams and cries and dies and
item the second: boy angsting
there is a CUTE BOY at ttbb bbs. this is a problem for several reasons.
firstly, we knew each other VERY BRIEFLY AND NOT WELL in high school. he knows me as my old name, and like whatever, he seems chill, he also seems straight. i feel like i have this image of him in my head from when we were teenagers--a good image, i remember him as being overall a really nice guy and this is def contributing to my feelings now. it's all sort of complicated and i'm not sure how well i'm explaining it because i'm trying to be a little vague.
when i like somebody, i tend to get a little........obsessive. we're friends on facebook from high school, i went on it after we re-met and promptly scrolled far enough to find a video of him soloing in college a cappella (and the original song there wound up being my top song on streaming this year. go figure. it is just a good song on its own... in my defense...) and also discovered some sensitive stuff about his family/medical life and my brain, the part of my brain that i don't have a ton of control over, has just seized on this stuff and is daydreaming wildly so any minute of free thought i get these days is spent playing whackamole with "DON'T THINK THAT, THAT'S WEIRD, STOPPIT".
see also: the gender stuff from above. carpool bestie (who's in all four of my singing groups, we're very normal friends that way) says that he seems "spicy straight" and that my only option is NOT just to ride this out and there's a possibility that i could get this to work out for me.
the thing is, i don't have a lot of experience with dating? i've been in a relationship before, but it was with another genderqueer person, and it was also just unconventional for several reasons: long distance for most of it, we were friends who hooked up and dtr'ed later, i was getting cheated on via badly handled polyamory for most of it, i don't think she ever liked me for me and just liked that i liked her. i don't know how to play the game that normal people play where they nonthreateningly and normally get to know each other and go for coffee and then whoops we've kissed. i want to try, but i'm scared. i don't want to make things awkward, i don't want to scare him away from ttbb bbs because they need him more than they need me, and just. just. i COULD make this work. but i don't know how. i don't even really see myself as someone attractive (in a personality sense, i think i'm pretty enough but also i'm off-putting to be around). what do i do what do i do what do i DO. i want to try, but how the hell do i do it? how do i do it tactfully?
so it's been a weird week here.
