Identity (part 1)
People resist change. It is not easy to change. Whether changing a process of thought, a behavior, a job, one's location, or a relationship, changing comes up against a myriad of resistors both inside oneself and from one's friends.
For all of my adult life, I have been a professional musician. Music and being a musician has been the nest of my identity. This means I have always known how to find "home" with myself and with the world. This sense of home, of belonging, provides a window to the future because of knowing where I belong. Making music and writing songs has never been questioned. It has been my home.
A time of change is upon my sense of home. I am changing my physical home soon, my children have moved on to their own homes, my sense of home in partnership with a significant other has changed in the last year, and I am shifting my thinking to reorient the way I am making a living. As well, the idea of making music as a professional is shifting inside my being.
The music business has changed so much in the last ten years. In the last four years, I lost my agent, funding for the arts became difficult to procure, the economy went crazy and I have felt less and less able to tour because of the immediacy of financial obligations. The reality of the music business has, at 50, come crashing down on me. And so has my sense of identity.
(to be continued)
