The Uncertainty of Hobbies (Among Other Things)
By Mike
I turned my hobby into a career and I constantly question if I made the wrong decision. I fell in love with music when I was a kid; now I’m the type of person that is embarrassed to say, “fell in love with music”. I started playing guitar when I was 14. The summer before my junior year of high school I decided I wanted to go to college for music. I improved my grades, took AP music theory, and arranged concert band pieces in the hopes of being accepted into the University of New Hampshire for music education with guitar as my focus instrument. I got in. I was hot shit. I did everything you would expect a music student to do in college: started a band, ran sound for an open mic at a hipster coffee shop, used guitar to impress girls, and made fun of the “poser” guitarists playing Oasis at the quad. I graduated college in 4 years with a 3.45 GPA (mostly because majority of music classes were effort-based grading). It was time to journey to the real world and implement what I had been training to do. I got a job teaching music at a K-8 public school in Greeley, Colorado and I fucking hated my life. I wasn’t hot shit anymore. I was uncertain.
The problem with my life in Greeley was that I couldn’t find fulfillment in either my work life or personal life. I was miserable and couldn’t understand why. It was pretty simple actually, I was lonely. I wouldn’t admit that to myself or anyone else though. I made the grand decision to move 2,000 miles away from my support system. I sought catharsis in Colorado but found the opposite. I dug my grave. I needed to lay in it. While my life was allegedly unraveling, I was living with a good friend from UNH as he completed his graduate program at a nearby university. He was a supportive friend and a fun guy to hang out with, but it still wasn’t enough. I had already locked everybody out. My solution was to go numb, so I didn’t have to feel the loneliness.
My roommate had made plenty of friends since we moved here, but I couldn’t really handle them. They were all music graduate students at the University of Northern Colorado. They all shared a love for music, my fucking hobby. They were all music all the time, and at the moment I hated music. Music brought nothing but uncertainty to my head. The nerve they had to throw my former hobby in my face. They found a way to take their hobby and turn it into a career, without ruining the joy from the hobby. Fuck those guys. I turned my hobby into a career that I resented, and I detested myself for that. I couldn’t admit that either. My solution for this was to lock my feelings up and be passive aggressive when I saw fit. I was filled with uncertainty. Greeley smelled like shit anyways.
I moved to Colorado because I was taking life for granted back home. I had a supportive family and trustworthy friends but before I moved all I was concerned about were my personal mishaps. I was too stuck on a past girl, too ungrateful to my family, too ingenuine with my friends. I felt like I was missing something. I was really just young and impatient, living in a world revolving around myself. I told everybody that I was “going through life but waiting to live”. I thought I was so profound. I guess I still thought I was hot shit at this point. In reality, I was just graduating college and scared shitless about the uncertainty of my future. I didn’t appreciate what I had so I had to get away. I got in touch with a head hunter who found me a job in Colorado. I owed him a bunch of money because I didn’t know how head hunters worked. My parents paid it because I didn’t have the money, and I moved to Colorado.
I don’t have the same relationship with music that I used to have. I still get the thrill every so often but it’s not the same. Its authenticity has diminished. I don’t hate it anymore either. I respect it, which I think is more important. When you respect something, you can no longer take advantage of it. Music is a utility to me now. Music is “used as an intervention tool to produce nonmusical goals” as my grad program states it. Guitar is my trusty coworker, a coworker I’m in love with, but still a coworker. I no longer have the irrational dream of “making it” in the music scene as a performer. I never really liked performing music anyways because it just targeted all my insecurities. I still like writing music. Writing a song gives you this outlet to reveal your deepest darkest secrets while hiding them at the same time. Music is different for me now because I feel like I have this involuntary reflex to prove myself every time something musical occurs. I paid way too much money in college to not have my musical abilities validated at every musical moment. I can’t shake that need for validation. Maybe those posers playing Oasis outside the quad had the right idea all along. Maybe I should apologize to the Greeley guys because they are actually good people. Growing up is just growing more embarrassed of the dumb shit you have said in the past anyways.
I quit my teaching job. I enrolled in graduate school full time at Colorado State University. I shifted my career path from music education to music therapy. I moved out of Greeley. I made all the changes in my life that I could control. Now, I try to not compare myself to other people so much anymore. I try to be more genuine with my support system back home because I love them, and they deserve to know that. I try to show gratitude to the people around me in Colorado. I’m grateful for my life but I’m still filled with uncertainty. I have developed new hobbies and I question if these are the hobbies I should turn into a career. Maybe. Maybe not. I’m still here, uncertain.
I’ve been in Colorado for almost 3 years now and every time I go back to Greeley to visit, I just think about the good memories. I had a rough year, but that year was also filled with a lot of laughs and plenty of new experiences. When it comes down to it, they are all just memories. It doesn’t matter if they were positive of negative because they are in the past now. I get to choose how they shape me. I choose to learn from the bad times and reminisce on the good times. Even if I realistically can’t choose everything, I choose to embrace the underlying impact my experiences have had on me. I’m going through life uncertain, but anyone who says they are certain is full of shit.
