My three lives...plus some

I have three lives.  Well, actually four.  And my personality is so different in each of them.  I go throughout each day feeling so weird and almost insincere, just by seeing how I act so differently in all of my different venues.

1st Life: I am a flutist.  I am a flutist who practices 3-4 hours each day, sometimes 5.  I'm semi-confident with such subjective material.  It's hard to feel completely secure with music, because on any given day, heck, any given HOUR, things can go so differently for you.  I don't talk much, mostly because I have a metal rod blocking my face and I am concentrating very hard on little black dots that like to move in sporadic movements over a bleached white page.  Headache!  I feel like I know what I'm doing...sort of...and I have probably the most ambitious goals for this life.  I could probably do more as far as effort and time goes, but then I wouldn't be able to balance all of these lives.

2nd Life:  I am a student, slaving away in class rehearsals for random, terribly short-noticed projects and exams that weren't in the syllabus due to some retarded circumstances.  For those of you in my 405 class, you know exactly what I'm talking about.  This is where I am the least confident.  With everything else that I must do with my time (including time that I cannot claim as my own, which, unfortunately, is about 90% of my awake hours) I simply don't have enough time/energy/ability to put all I've got into my school work.  Unfortunately that has come back to bite me in my graduate school admission process.  Don't people understand that I usually spend about 9 hours a day total playing my flute, and I have a part time job?  I can't do the whole twice-as-much-time-out-of-class-as-in-class rule.  I simply don't have the time.  I could quit my job, but then I wouldn't be able to pay for a piano accompanist, flute competitions, flute maintenance, flute music, and not to mention some food every now and then.  I came to college to become a great flutist.  I did not come to college to be an average flute player who knows a lot about music theory.  Apparently, you have to play that game.  Goodbye sleep!

3rd Life: I am a TA.  I work as a tutor for physical science.  I grade tons of papers, give tons of reviews, and talk to tons of students about the same things over and over and over and over and over.  I am confident, energetic, and super popular.  All of the TAs are popular.  Think about it.  If what you have in your head is what is on that next big test, of course everyone wants to be your best friend.  I'm a musician, and actually don't know a whole lot of deep scientific principles, but I fool the students into thinking I'm super smart.  While I'm at work, I feel like I'm making a difference.  I don't feel like I'm failing at life in life #3 like I feel like in life #2 and sometimes life #1.  As soon as I leave the ESC each day, I walk into a much scarier world.

4th Life:  This is the life that most people call their "life."  Here lies my husband, church, family, friends, sleep, cooking, eating, and heaven forbid....I have a hobby wedged in here!  I do ballroom dancing.  Now, I can only squeeze out an hour a day to practice.  If I had it my way, I would spend at least 3 hours a day on this, but unfortunately even just one hour is almost costing me.  But I keep it in my fourth life, simply because without dancing, I would completely abandon life #1 like I almost did a few months ago.  I need this to keep me sane.  I need this to keep me happy.  I need this to help me to feel beautiful and confident.  Because without this life, I would not be happy enough to have the energy to trudge through lives #1 and #2.  Without lives #1 and #2, I would not have life #3.

These lives are all connected, and all mandatory for either my degree, my future career, my sanity, my health, and my happiness.

Life is a balancing act.  I know that I could be better at any given thing that I do, but there is simply not enough hours in a day.  Goodness, I wonder what being a mom will be like!  :)