Sometimes, when a person has undergone a tremendous amount of psychological trauma, they’ll return to a time in their history when life ebbed and flowed naturally, unadulterated by the issues grownups had to face. In this childlike state, the person can escape the trials and tribulations of the real world and re-enter the child realm of no worries and no responsibilities, sucking binkies and security blankets. Part of a young person’s coming of age is abandoning childhood frivolities for adult skills, but at what cost? In our single-minded surrender of any activity that can’t be wielded as a bargaining tool in the job search, have we relegated impractical pastimes to a coping tool for the mentally ill? Have activities that provide pure enjoyment become child’s play?
This quarter, after a long hiatus from any significant musical pursuits, I decided to dust the cobwebs off of my vocal nodules and channel my inner Mariahwhitneychristina. But this séance, rather than giving me closure, opened up a can of caterpillars- not the kind of warm and fuzzies I had hoped for. Recently, I had only dabbled here and there in the occasional talent show or school event, more as proof for myself of an enduring musical interest than anything else. But the sporadic exposure to something I once built my dream life (and an elaborate “About Me”) around only made me feel guilty, like failing to keep in touch with a really good friend. I came to college promising to call every day; we made all these plans to see each other- I was going to fly down one weekend, it was going to come up the next. But eventually, school and jobs and groups and deadlines crowded out my creative energy, and along with it, my energy to be creative. My talent was always there, though. It was me who hadn’t held up my end of the bargain.
So Gospel Ensemble found me overworked and underslept. It might not have even happened had a grad student not asked me, “Do you sing?”- to which I responded with a pregnant pause………….. I was thinking! Do you sing? The pain of having to formulate on the spot my thirty-second job pitch answer I should have practiced with [job prep advisor] Veda Jeffries that justified me investing time into it really left me stumped. Was it even a question? I realized that what held me back was my unwillingness to make a serious commitment to a goal that, according to the Stanford Law of Career Prep, I was about three clubs and five internships short of successfully pursuing. That, and the fact that I was having cold feet- If we were that close, wouldn’t I have found a way to keep in touch? This pressure to invest time into a pleasure that, if pursued, would detract from more practical ventures that would make my mom and my dad and my grandma and my grandpa and my aunts and my uncles and my other grandma happy was making me crazy and prematurely gray.
I don’t want it to take a trauma and a regression into a childlike state for me to remember the value I found in singing that made me want to pursue it as a career all those years ago. The more I allow the outsiders to define the terms of this relationship, the more I let go of my power to discover my own happiness. Being a member of the Stanford Gospel Ensemble might be my golden ticket to Hollywood. It might not. But regardless of its economic payoff, singing, for me, is precious, personal, satisfying, completely impractical, and a much needed return to innocence.
Hi, I'm Alicia Barber and I'm a starving artist. Or at least that's the plan, anyway. Right now, I'm a senior at Stanford University, busy with the daunting task of neatly wrapping up my four years with a good GPA, the competitive post-grad job to prove it, and the whimsical summer cross-continental jaunt to undercut its significance. ("It's a hair flip!")
Practical goals aside, I've created this blog to document my journey as a struggling aspiring singer, and, if nothing else, to hold myself accountable to this dream I've all but let fall to the wayside in pursuit of a fallback career. But with senioritis setting in, I'm trying to channel my restlessness into revisiting and re-attempting this "singing thing." At the end of last school year, I wrote the above article that I like to think of as a step back I needed in order to take a step forward.
It's not an original story-- many people opt for the comfortable life over the glamorous life. Hopefully, anyone else reading this with a fallback career they let steal the limelight will cue it to wrap up its fifteen minutes of fame and rediscover what it was that made them utter their "When I grow up"'s with eyes wide and minds open. So without further adieu.....
Let's get blogging!!!
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