Belated Blogger

It's been six months since my last post.  I really meant to post at least monthly, but obviously that didn't happen.  I could come up with a whole slew of reasons/excuses, but the honest truth is I haven't wanted to talk about dyslexia lately.  I've been trying to learn new repertoire.  And I've struggled with reading the damned things.  Again.  Same old struggle.  And it's been getting to me.  I'm considered a "senior" now, and so fears of diminishing mental capacity lurk among my daily thoughts.  Add dyslexic struggles, and I've been, well, not wanting to face how dyslexia might affect "Senioritis".

Of course my mental muscles still work.  In fact, they are working just fine, especially after discovering recently that my lung function needed a little help with an inhaler.  (It's amazing how much more alert one feels with proper oxygen saturation).  And I've lived with dyslexia my entire life so I should be comfortable with the struggles I face whenever I'm trying to learn a new piece.

I've just gotten really tired of the struggle lately.  My husband keeps telling me to write a book on dyslexia as a musician.  I've got all the notes written down.  Friends and colleagues urge me to get it done.  I've thought about working up a l-o-n-g overdue solo recital program to prove to myself (yet again) that I really can play, it's just the reading part that's annoying.

The struggle never changes.  It never gets easier.  And after years and years (and YEARS) of never winning the same fight over and over, the last six months have seen me seriously reflecting on whether to ... well, to be blunt about it ... to quit.

I hate that word.  I heard it all through my formative years when I wanted to be a pianist.  "You can't read well enough to pursue music.  You need to quit and do something else."

And my instinctive reaction was always, "Hell, no!  I'm not quitting!"

That reaction is still inside, poking me in the chest with a proverbial finger whenever I feel like throwing in the musical towel.  So, no.  I'm not going to quit.  And, no,  I don't really want a kick in the butt to get me going again, either.

There are tons of sayings about these kinds of trials.  "Ride out the storm." "Keep putting one foot in front of the other." "You need a storm in order to get a rainbow."

My personal favorite is attributed to Winston Churchill: "When you're going through hell ... keep going."

Hell comes in many forms, all intensely personal, all legitimate issues.  Hopefully, all at some time will get better.

So, I will keep going.  Maybe not very fast, but still in a forward direction ... to the piano.  After all, it represents an intimate part of my identity, of who I am. Struggles included.