I stopped singing

Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself 

~Walter Anderson~

There have been a number of things or themes that have crossed my mind over the last few months to blog about and I am not sure that I can separate them all but I will try to. So here it goes…

It is alarming to think that you can be totally unaware that you are unhappy until someone says something to you that lets you know that your behaviour has changed. I walked through the hallway one day and a lady who I didn’t even think noticed when I passed her door sometimes said to me; Are you okay Tara? I have not heard you singing in the hallways as much recently and you don’t seem yourself. Now that is not in quotation marks because with my memory the words may not be exact but just what the essence of it was. She shocked me! She made me stop to think and more than anything else she made me determined to start singing again.

During that period where I was feeling a little lost and unhappy a number of things happened; I started spending more time at home, immobile, more time watching rubbish that didn’t in any way move me and I stopped singing. I stopped singing. Well, come on, I went to rehearsals, I kept working and kept doing all the things that I thought were important. But so many things changed, I wasn’t reaching out to people anymore, I called home, I had conversations, I think I snapped at people more, my patience just wasn’t there. I wonder if people were giving me a wide berth and just thinking well we are certainly seeing her true side now. I stopped singing. I didn’t have the energy to cook, I didn’t have the appetite for food in the first place, it was so hard to get up and go. I stopped singing. It took a random person who I only say hi and howdy to occasionally to point out to me that I stopped singing.

How do you not see it? How do you not want to feel the difference in yourself? How do you sometimes fool yourself that no one notices any changes in your behaviour? I remember clearly one Saturday afternoon thinking, I should really leave home, I haven’t moved from here since Thursday. I had been very productive, I had sections of the chapter that I was working on finished but I had not left my flat in days. And those were gorgeous days and we don’t have many of those so I really should have enjoyed them. How did all that happen?

This certainly wasn't what I thought this blog was going to be about , but it is where it ended up. I want to say thanks to so many people for just being there during this time, those who didn't push, those who gave me a wide berth, those who just listened to me bitch whenever I needed to and certainly those people who took the most abuse and suffered through the tears as I pulled myself out of my funk, you all know who you are. But I also want to say a special thanks to that sweet lady who took the time to say that I had stopped singing. I stopped singing! 

Heaven knows, in fact everyone who has been in a funk, dealing with death or any number of emotions, thoughts, feelings or the inability to get going for whatever reason knows that recovering is not instantaneous. But the other day I caught myself humming as I walked down the hallway so I think I am getting there, slowly. 

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. 

~Vincent Van Gogh~