Breaking up is hard to do

I’m ending my 4+ year working relationship with one of my clients. It’s just time. I have too many other jobs. I can’t attend to his projects properly, and that makes me feel perpetually guilty and frustrated. But just because it’s the right thing to do, and will be good in the long-run doesn’t make it any easier.

It does sort of feel like a break-up. After all, I do like the guy personally, which is more than I can say for another of my clients who drives me nuts. I don’t think it’s common to find people who you really click with, so it’s important to value those relationships when they come along. But liking and respecting someone isn’t a good enough reason to keep working on projects that don’t suit you. After money and loyalty, you still have to consider the actual work, and the work no longer interests me.

He said something the other day that struck me. We were IM’ing and he wrote:

you are more of an artsy person than i understood and less of a lawyerish person than i guessed

I’m not sure I realized that was true until fairly recently. Since singing picked up, I have been feeling much more like a singer and much less like a … worker bee, for lack of a better term. Until recently, I have had to keep singing on the sidelines while working this job or others to pay the bills. I have worked as an admin for a real estate agent, as an admin at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, as a server in several restaurants, as a FOIA analyst for the Coast Guard, and as a legal assistant. None of these was a dream job, though they all had their certain perks.

I have had to keep wearing the “responsible career” hat while also pursuing the singing path. I paid my bills, balanced the checkbook, worked this job, and sang on the side. Now I don’t have to sing on the side so much. It’s no longer a hobby. It’s actually a job. I still have other jobs, but I have to focus more on singing because everything I’ve been working towards for the past few years is finally happening. It’s falling into place, and I’m finally getting somewhere. I’m ready to find a new teacher. I’m waiting for the next chorus gig. I’m preparing for a recital. I’m singing a lot every week for money. I’m ready to think about more auditions.

So I have to say goodbye to this other job. This non-singing job. I have to embrace my singerly self, and move away from the work that no longer suits me. I have to resolve the situations that steal my energy because of guilt. I have to trust that what I have going is going to keep going and that I can build upon it and grow, and not hang on to things out of desperation and fear that it will all fall apart. I have to let go of “what if” and “just in case.” But as exciting as that is, and as much of a relief as it is to stop doing this work, it also sucks mightily, and I’m simultaneously sad about it all. It feels like something big is ending, and that kind of breaks my heart.