I am a musician
But the last time I performed I didn’t know It would be my last. Fast It happened so fast Collapsed My body didn’t bounce back. I was playing my instrument The way I had for 16 years Tears On stage Crying I am a musician? It was like a dream Or a nightmare Where You’re screaming But nothing comes out. You have no voice No choice I froze. On stage where I had always felt so Free Powerful Like me I am a musician? Betrayed by my body No longer could I play my instrument No longer could I use my voice My creative outlet My catharsis My profession My life How can I be a musician? Diagnosed. A stress induced career ending injury No answers, in need of more study Doctors don’t know how to help Can anyone grant me an ounce of clarity? I am no longer a musician I am spiraling. Everything is dark Empty Succumbing to the pain I want to escape I have wasted more than half my life What am I going to do? This instrument is what I am I am nothing without this instrument I am not a musician “That’s so weird.” “You’ll be fine.” Is anyone really hearing what I am trying to say? I have lost my ability to play I have lost myself. My instrument collects dust Sitting, wasting away Grieve I must Grieve for my identity Grieve for my instrument Grieve for the melody that haunts me Lingering in my mind All of the time Time When will I get to the other side? To accept this as the end To accept that I am no musician Would be Wrong Harm I mean no harm To myself Not anymore. The pain I feel The skill I lost Has not disappeared. The music I hear The knowledge I hold The passion I harbor Maybe no longer Can I have my instrument in my hold But do not deny myself This creative power This voice inside me Screaming to be heard This reckless roller coaster This ride I did not sign up for Yes, I am tired But I am not silent. I never will be Silence is not in my capacity I am a musician.
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Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it...LONG TIME, NO BLOG! If you’re reading this, welcome back. It’s been a minute since I’ve had the mental capacity to sit down and write one of these, but for whatever reason, on this bitterly cold day, I decided that my headspace was momentarily healed. I left my cozy apartment and braved the walk to a local coffee shop to sit down and organize my chaotic thoughts. So whether you’re reading this in a kitschy, overpriced café while you sip your room temperature oat milk latte, or you’re rotting on the couch like you deserve, thank you for being here. The spark for this post comes from some intrusive, or maybe not-so-intrusive, thoughts. If you’re also a chronically online girlie, you may know that #intrusivethoughts has become a bit of a meme, a dark comedic trend on TikTok. If you’ve ever had a thought that seemed difficult to control (i.e. checking to see if the pan on the stove is hot enough by touching it with your bare finger, or scooping your cat up and attacking it with a million rapid-fire kisses), you may have experienced an intrusive thought.* Over the past couple of years, there have been instances where I suddenly feel the urge to play my horn. Two years ago, I would have considered this as an extremely intrusive thought. While I was grieving and mentally working through my injury, attempting to play my horn was not the best idea. Back then, the impulse to play was fueled by delusion and self-sabotage. On the few occasions where I let those intrusive thoughts win, it always ended with me in physical pain, crying lots of tears, and starting the healing process all over again. (And not to say that this was wrong. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. In the moment, however, I fully knew it was probably not the best thing I could do for myself. But I couldn’t help it. I am just a girl!) Fast forward to now– if I have an itch to play my horn, it seems a little less intrusive and more just healthy curiosity (and also necessary, but more on that later). How would my soft-palate feel? Would I be able to produce a clear tone? What kind of shape would my embouchure be in? Would my embouchure even exist at all? How would playing affect me mentally? Recently, these curiosities have been surfacing more frequently, and while there is a reason for that, I think it’s important to acknowledge that these thoughts are normal to have even three years post injury. It’s quite possible I will be asking myself these questions for years to come. It’s also possible I may stop thinking about playing my horn altogether. Either way, I will allow myself the space to acknowledge and process these thoughts or lack thereof. So the other day when I took my saxophone out of its case for the first time in a while, unzipping years of trauma neatly packed away, it simultaneously felt like a really big moment and not a huge deal at all. Although the impetus behind me bringing my horn back out is incredibly special and exciting, it didn’t make it any less unsure. As I put the instrument together, reminiscing on this action that used to be so routine, I still felt in control. As I held my horn, expecting it to feel foreign in my hands, I still felt comfortable. I took a deep breath and played my first note in years. I only played for a total of five minutes. Some sustained notes, some short three-note bursts, a scale or two: I was just calmly noodling around. It was an overall neutral experience and to my surprise, I had little soft-palate pain. (My embouchure…now that’s a different story.) I do not sound like I did pre-injury, but I wasn’t expecting or hoping to. It was an affirming moment that reminded me I really have processed and healed from this experience. Which is great, because this will not be the last time I play my horn either. A project I am currently working on in collaboration with colleague and friend, Matt Fox, is a commission from composer/saxophonist, Keaton Garrett. 2nd bloom is a multimedia work open for any performers with endurance related playing injuries. Focusing on accessibility, this piece uses media, short phrases, and other techniques to balance out the high demands of most traditional works for saxophone. Matt and I will be premiering 2nd bloom at the 2024 North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference in March and will follow the performance with a presentation on SVPI, personal recounts, and a discussion with Keaton on composing for musicians with injuries. To say that there is a wide range of emotions surrounding this would be an understatement. I know this presentation is going to be powerful and important. I also know it’s going to be scary and stressful. With all of my anxieties and insecurities surrounding this performance, I am comforted by the support I have in Matt, Keaton, other members inside and outside of the saxophone community, and myself. The reason intrusive thoughts are labeled as intrusive is because they cause an unwanted disruption. An invasive moment in your mind where you think “I shouldn’t do this, but what if I did?” Maybe I shouldn’t bring my horn back out after it took me nearly two years to grieve and put away. But what if I did? What if I bring my horn back out, commission a piece with someone who understands what it’s like to experience SVPI, collaborate with a composer who is respectful of our experience, premiere the piece at a national conference, and further the discussion on playing injuries and musician wellness? What would happen if I did all of that as just another step in this journey? I think I’d like to find out. *I do not want to diminish the seriousness of intrusive thoughts either. Intrusive thoughts are important to identify and can seriously disrupt everyday life. If intrusive thoughts impact your ability to complete tasks or do things you enjoy, seeking help from a mental health professional may help. For more information on intrusive thoughts, please click here.
It took me two years to feel ready to put my saxophone away in its case. Two years to move it somewhere that was not in direct eyesight for me to see every night before I went to bed and every morning when I woke up. Clearly, there is a lot to unpack here. So let’s try.
For starters, I felt so sad and triggered by this instrument, but for some reason, those intense feelings of loss, nostalgia, and anger were not enough to convince me to put my horn away. For some reason, seeing my saxophone on its stand in my room, every single day, felt more right to me than having it completely out of sight. Why was that? Was I just angsty and liked being depressed? Was I trying to manifest that one day I would pick it up and magically start playing as if I never had SVPI? Did I think that packing it in its case meant that I was finally accepting what happened? That I was finally ready to move on? I think the answer to all of these is yes. There were a plethora of reasons why I refused to put my horn away for so long, and that is entirely okay. When you are dealing with an injury, it is valid to feel things on all sides of the spectrum. You can simultaneously be depressed and devastated about your injury, and still feel hopeful that maybe one day you will recover from it. You can feel like you are not ready to accept what happened and move on while also feeling like you want to distance yourself from the community entirely. We are incredibly complex creatures with big, complicated feelings. It is important to feel that range of emotions when going through something as life changing as a performance injury. So yeah, you could say I was an angsty emo girl, but if I am being totally transparent, I became very comfortable being depressed. I wanted to keep being depressed. Having my saxophone out in my room, directly across from my bed, forced a stare down in the lonely, dark hours of the night and in the sleepy hours of the morning. Staring at my horn in these vulnerable moments meant that I could bask in my sadness. It meant that I could make myself even sadder. I could look at this physical object right in front of me and feel mocked by it. Putting it away would have removed a concrete representation of my trauma and I could not bear the thought of that. It was like my saxophone was a cinder block and I needed it to help me drown. And yeah, you could also say I was feeding my hopeful delusions that one day I would pick my saxophone up and start playing with zero soft palate issues. If life was a movie, maybe that would have been the case, but on the few instances I did pick it up and try playing, I was instantly reminded that I do indeed have SVPI and that my playing issues were still very much there. But I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t manifest hard enough… And okay, maybe I definitely thought that packing my horn up would be me finally saying goodbye to the person I was. That I would be saying goodbye to my entire identity, to a community I had grown up in, to sixteen years of my life. It would be me, finally accepting everything that had happened, finally ready to move on. I knew that when I did decide to put my horn away, it would be a powerful moment, and I knew that it would happen eventually. I just wasn’t ready for it until semi-recently... It was a random afternoon and I was blasting music through my headphones while cleaning the house. My absolute favorite Bon Iver song of all time came on and I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to put my horn away. Call it ADHD, call it a revelation, call it whatever you want– it was a powerful moment and I seized it. As I was putting my horn away to “8 (circle)” I felt so many big feelings. I felt like I was taking control of my life, like I was moving on and I was at peace with that. I felt like I was closing a chapter of my life that I was ready to close. I felt like I was saying goodbye to a past me and welcoming a new version of myself with so much elation, warmth, and curiosity. I felt both excited and at ease. It was an extremely cathartic turning point that I know was appropriately timed. (Plus, the music for this moment was just indescribably perfect. The power Justin Vernon has over me is ridiculous and how does his music make me feel like I could conquer Mount Everest and also sob on the couch for five days straight?) So maybe there isn’t even a lot to unpack here. Grief is strange and powerful and unpredictable. Giving yourself the time and space to grieve, to embrace moving forward and accept falling backward as a part of the journey is allowing yourself to fully process and heal. Today, my horn is packed away. Hibernating in its overpriced case with crumpled up sheets of music, old reeds that are definitely moldy by now, a metronome I accidentally stole in undergrad, sixteen years of bittersweet memories, and a past version of myself. Maybe it will see the light of day again at some point, but for now, I am very content with it not being in my direct eyesight. It just makes it easier to look out onto new horizons. My first blog post was titled “Well What the Fuck Do I Do Now?” and at the time I had no better way of properly conveying how I was feeling. Reading it back now, it is still so painfully accurate. After being forced off a career path, how do you know what the right move is?
Universities do not teach you what to do in this scenario. It actually feels like quite the opposite. They push you to your physical and mental limits so that you can pass your jury. They force band concerts and performances on you so that they can maximize their visibility. But what happens when you suffer an injury as a direct result of all of that? Where is the proactive support for that scenario? Unless higher education equips you with adequate resources and recognizes that supporting students goes beyond technique lessons and unpaid performance opportunities, universities are not operating sustainably or ethically. After my injury, I felt like I had no resources or support from the institution I was a part of for four years. An institution I had given so much of my time, money, and work to had no concrete way of making me feel supported or even cared for. And maybe that is not the responsibility of an institution. But isn’t it the responsibility of human beings in a shared community? After I finished the Artist’s Certificate program, I was going to need to find a full-time job regardless of if I had suffered an injury or not. I had bills to pay and food to buy (girls gotta eat). I began bartending full-time and about a year later I transitioned to my first 8:00–5:00 office job. In these two years (in these two very different roles), I have experienced copious amounts of shade for not working in the field that my degrees are in. For example, here is a list of actual things that have been said to me since my injury and leaving higher education: “You have a master’s degree and you’re bartending?” “Bartending…so is that like a career move for you?” “You work in a Career Center and your job isn’t even what you went to school for?” “Well, what were you going to do with a music degree anyways?” Typing these all out, I am amazed, but not entirely surprised, at the sheer audacity of certain people. I cannot even begin to comprehend why anyone would consider it socially acceptable to say these to a person, and why the fuck do people care so much about what other people are doing with their lives? Why is there so much judgment (from people inside and outside of the music community) around not working in the field you went to school for? Some of these things that were said to me came from strangers and some came from trusted relationships. Some of these things were said to me while fully knowing about my injury, others had no idea. They all hurt just the same. I am typically pretty good about not letting things like this affect me, but sometimes they do. When I was as emotionally vulnerable as I was post-injury, the impact these words had on me was significant and extremely detrimental. So how do you even respond when people say these judgmental things to you? Ways I have responded in the past include: blank stares; hitting them with the sob story about a career ending performance injury and making them feel like an asshole; being very sassy and putting them in their place; and on multiple occasions I have just walked away and cried. Also, do these people realize that the world is a giant dumpster fire? We are all out here just doing our best and trying to get by. For some people, getting through each day looks like serving drinks full-time, for others it’s teaching private lessons. Some people make it through another week by teaching adjunct and working part-time at a coffee shop, others make it through another week by working a corporate job from home and prioritizing a healthy work-life balance. There is no wrong way to live after you graduate. There is no wrong way to provide for yourself. All of these are success stories. All of these should be admired and celebrated. Bringing this all back to my original question, when you are forced off a career path and have no sense of direction about what you should do next, how do you know what the right move is? Maybe, the right move is simply just the next step you take. Taking the next step is something to be praised no matter what that step is and until we are properly supported and prepared for life after leaving higher education, no one has any business asking if a job outside of music is a “career move” for you. So it was recently the two-year anniversary of my injury. Happy Soft Palate Collapseversary to me! 🎉
It’s crazy to think about how much my life has changed in the past two years. I am definitely not the same person I was in 2021 and it’s strange to think that if my injury never happened, would I still have become the person I am today? Pre-injury, I would describe myself as effervescent, a little shy, naive, and honestly way less cool than I am now. For example, I used to think the coolest thing about me was that I was a saxophonist. (I’m not like the other girls, I play saxophone.) Pre-injury I thought that I needed to constantly filter myself and that I shouldn’t voice my opinions for fear of being ostracized by the community. I thought that if I publicly called out toxic behavior it would ruin my chances of becoming a respected professional in the field. (We love being a woman in a male dominated field. Hey Siri, play “The Man” by Taylor Swift.) Pre-injury, almost every aspect of my life was a product of music school. Oh, and pre-injury I did not have bangs. Post-injury, this is all vastly different. Post-injury, I think the coolest thing about me is my ability to share my story in a way that is approachable and relatable. (I’m not like the other girls, I have Stress Induced Velopharyngeal Insufficiency.) I no longer worry about constantly having to filter myself. I am no longer afraid of calling out harmful, toxic behavior, and I am no longer trying to impress people I do not care to impress. My life is now more balanced and is full of people and relationships that have been formed outside of the music community. And, perhaps most importantly, I now have bangs. Clearly, they are my personality trait. Reflecting on who I was pre-injury and who I am post-injury, I often end up wondering: did my injury change me or did I change because of my injury? I know it may sound like these questions are asking the same thing, but I think there is a slight yet distinguishable nuance to how each is posed. The former is asking if my experience with SVPI controlled who I was as a person and my outlook on life. The latter is asking if I decided to change who I was and how I viewed the world because of the experiences I had. If we think about it in specific instances, these questions may look like the following: If I had not injured myself, would I have started bartending full time? Would I have decided to distance myself from my music friends if I had not injured myself? If I had not injured myself, would I have found solace in the new people in my life? Would I have connected with musicians that I maybe never would have if it weren’t for my injury? If I had not injured myself, would I have started therapy back up? Honestly, it is impossible to really answer any of these or to definitively say if my injury changed me or if I decided to change because of my injury. If I had to answer, I would say it is a little bit of both and that it does not even really matter. What matters is that it happened, and I found a way out of it. I grew as a person and came out on the other side, stronger than before. (And cooler.) On this two-year collapseversary, I am remembering everything that I have gone through since my injury. I am thinking about the person I was, the person I have become, and the person I will be two years from now. I am not grateful for my injury. That feels weird to even say. I still miss playing music and performing with my horn, but I am incredibly grateful for the things I have learned from my injury, the people who have come into my life as a result of it, and the story I can share because of it. You know how in high school yearbooks people write “never change” (and let’s not forget “HAGS” and “HAKAS”)? Please change. Thank god I am not the same person I was in high school or the same person I was pre-injury. The glow up was real and embracing change can do wonders for your life…and your hair (you should get bangs). By Mariah Goulet
Bombastic side eye to whoever came up with “no pain, no gain.” Seriously, who coined that phrase? I have a bone to pick with them. Currently fueled by hyperfixation and one too many cups of coffee, bear with me as I chaotically break down the origin of this expression. *ahem* According to Wikipedia, ''no pain, no gain” came to fruition around 750–650 BC (immediately what?) when Hesiod, an ancient Greek poet, wrote: “...But before the road of Excellence the immortal gods have placed sweat. And the way to it is long and steep and rough at first. But when one arrives at the summit, then it is easy, even though remaining difficult.” Roughly translated by me, a self-proclaimed Greek poetry expert as of right this moment, I can assure it’s giving “before it’s a slay, our iconic kings and queens will push you to your limits and make this absolutely miserable for you, but don’t worry it will all be worth it once you reach the top…where you will feel like a cartoon dog sitting in a chair in the middle of a raging fire thinking ‘it’s fine, everything is fine’.” A little later on in the fifth century BC, Greek playwright Sophocles (Hesiod’s much more popular would-have-been-bestie) wrote, “nothing truly succeeds without pain.” Again, as a self-proclaimed Greek poetry expert as of right this moment, this roughly translates to “nothing truly succeeds without pain.” Changing our filters and swiping through sixteenth century British bois (literally why is it all men spewing this mantra…), poet Nicholas Breton wrote “They must take pain that look for any gain.” Now, I am no self-proclaimed British poetry expert, but what I am getting from this is that you must accept pain in order to achieve gain. Okay so here we are, looks like we made it. (Oh my god did I just quote Barry Manilow?) In 1650, poet Robert Herrick penned the great British poetry book, Hesperides. In this book he wrote, “NO PAINS, NO GAINS." …MY MANS. ARE YOU OKAY? I am not sure why all these poets are out here obsessing over this expression, but seriously, what are they trying to prove? Anyways, now that I have given a completely professional and scholarly lesson on the origin of “no pain, no gain”, let’s talk about the phrase as it pertains to our community. The idea that you must endure physical and emotional pain in order to succeed or advance is ridiculous. It is wrong to insinuate that if you are not in pain, you are not doing enough; and it is harmful to imply that if you are in pain, it will all be worth it in the end. As someone who has suffered a performance injury, nothing about “no pain, no gain” makes me feel great. It is destructive and has the power to be incredibly harmful to a musician who has suffered a performance injury and to a musician who has not. I do not intend for this to sound like I am on a soapbox because I know that “no pain, no gain” can also just mean to not give up when you are exercising at the gym, lifting and getting swole or whatever it is people do at the gym. The problem is when we apply it to musical pedagogy. (Actually, on second thought, I feel like this is problematic in a gym setting too. I don’t know. My form of gym is walking up and down a flight of stairs to do laundry.) I have heard from far too many musicians about how they have been encouraged to play through their physical pain for as long as they can remember. Whether they were instructed to do this directly or indirectly, the resulting physical and mental damage can be significant either way. By telling a student “oh yeah, that happens”, it is dismissing the issue and invalidating their experience. By suggesting a player should just ignore the pain in order to get through their recital, it is indirectly saying that their performance is more important than their health. By enforcing unhealthy playing habits and exhibiting daily imbalance, it is demonstrating that no matter what, the craft is always the priority. By glorifying playing through pain, it is endorsing the “no pain, no gain” motto. The narrative that this phrase perpetuates within our community is not sustainable. We need to stop living by it. It is time to shift the narrative. Instead of “no pain, no gain” we need to encourage players to listen to their bodies. We need to acknowledge that injuries do happen and that they can be a direct result of the intense community we are a part of. We need to realize that when an injury does happen, taking care of it needs to be the priority, and we need to advocate for musician wellness. I know “no pain, no gain” sounds cutesy and it rhymes, but you know what also rhymes? “No sonata is worth the trauma!” (Slant rhymes are rhymes too.) There is no shame in experiencing a performance injury, and quite frankly, “no pain, no gain” just sounds like something some seventeenth century toxic poet spewed out to compensate for their own insecurities. And who wants to sound like a seventeenth century poet? I do nots. References Wikipedia contributors. (2023, March 23). No pain, no gain. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:43, April 19, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=No_pain,_no_gain&oldid=1146161776 By Mariah Goulet
Okay so who was going to tell me that I can still perform without my saxophone? Ever since I was little, I have loved being the center of attention. I eat up attention like a cat eats up a fresh bowl of food after not being fed for five days (which is actually only eight hours in human time). The thrill I get from being on a stage, the confidence I feel from commanding a room, the laughter that erupts from the audience when I am authentically myself...that shit is addicting. I used to see being a saxophonist and a performer as a co-dependent relationship. I could not be one without the other. So when the whole saxophonist thing was no longer an option, I said goodbye to being a performer as well. This was not an easy thing for me to come to terms with. Let me put how much I love performing into perspective for you– When I was in elementary school, I entered my Cheetah Girls era. I convinced three of my friends to form our own Cheetah Girls group and we performed hits from the iconic Disney Channel Original Movie for students at recess. (We also ended up getting in trouble with the principal because “those girls in that movie were no one to look up to” and “we were being exclusionary”…literally why am I still bitter about this? Things to keep in mind for therapy.) When I was in middle school, I convinced my best friend and younger cousins to record our own music video renditions of the Jonas Brothers’ “Burnin’ Up” and Abba’s “Money, Money, Money." Complete with costumes, backdrops, early 2000s video filters, and hairbrush microphones, I starred, directed, and produced the hell out of these videos. (Yes, they are still on YouTube. No, you may not have the link for them.) I could go on and on about the amount of times I have seized any opportunity to perform, but I will leave it with these two adorable (and also kind of cringe) examples. When I suffered my career ending performance injury, I was not just grieving the loss of my ability to play my instrument. I was also grieving the loss of my ability to perform in the way that I had known for more than half of my life. Flash forward through two years of therapy, getting bangs, dark humor, and many new tattoos (I just want to feel something, okay?), I have given a presentation on my injury and musician wellness at a national conference. My presentation, in debt with a collapsed soft palate (yes, the presentation title is the same as this website, but hear me out– when you have a good idea, you maximize your opportunities), includes sections on soft palate research, a personal recount about my injury, musician wellness, and ways the community can engage with musicians experiencing performance injuries. (It also includes many original memes because I do not know how to talk about all of this serious, depressing stuff without humor.) So this is where I get to my first point– WHO WAS GOING TO TELL ME THAT I LOVE PERFORMING IN THE FORM OF PUBLIC SPEAKING? I used to think I needed my saxophone to be able to perform. This presentation made me realize that all I need is my voice. So I had a revelation after my presentation. I have performed at multiple NASA conferences over the years. What impact did those performances make? How memorable were those performances really? This time, I spoke vulnerably and openly about my experiences. I just vocalized the thoughts in my head. My voice made a much greater impact and was significantly more memorable than any performance I had ever done. The echoes of this presentation were palpable and the amount of people who have reached out to me since has made me feel more hopeful, validated, and empowered than ever before. I don’t want to talk about this injury forever or milk it as a sob story (job application circumstances excluded…please feel bad for me and hire me). However, I do want to continue advocating for musician wellness and a more inclusive, aware community. I want to be a voice that is not afraid to call out harmful, toxic behavior. I want to be someone who does not shy away from things that may be uncomfortable to talk about… …which leads me to the point of this entire blog post. I plan to utilize this site as a way to authentically talk about musician wellness. To share silly memes. To provide resources to our community in an effort to make us more well-rounded. To be an advocate for a more sustainable community. To write more blog posts that take uncomfortable topics and make them more approachable and relatable. My collapsed soft palate isn’t going anywhere. My debt certainly isn’t going anywhere (Biden, u up?). This website and the community I hope to form isn’t going anywhere. So like, share, and let me know if this is something I should pay the Weebly premium for so I can add a subscribe button. As the great Zac Efron once said, “we’re all in this together." By Mariah Goulet One year later and my soft-palate (the muscle in your throat that allows you to control your air and blow out of your mouth instead of your nose) is still collapsed. Someone call LifeAlert® because it has fallen and it can not get up.
What do you do when you are on stage performing the last piece on your recital, and all of a sudden something in your throat channels its inner Elle Woods and bends and snaps out of place? You are crying from immense pain and from not knowing what the fuck just happened or what to do next. The proverbial saying “the show must go on” rings in your head. FUCK the show. I want to run off stage as quickly as I possibly can while wearing these stupid heels and this dress that is way too long for me and get a second to comprehend what just happened. But I did not do that. Because #beastmode and because wE mUsT pOWeR tHrOuGh tHe PAiN! My duo partner (bless her for having the awareness to realize something was wrong, although I’m sure it helped that she could also hear the weird snorting/heaving/disgusting sound of desperation that I was involuntarily making) and I jumped to the end of the piece so that I could run off and cry in private instead of on stage. Because you know, it’s not “professional” to lose control of your emotions while you are on stage. Just ask Will Smith. One year later, I am still trying to comprehend what happened. Two doctor visits later, all I have is a diagnosis of Stress Induced Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (SVPI) (and yes, that did take me six tries to spell correctly) from a general practitioner, and an essential ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄ from a throat specialist who explained that there was nothing they could do since my everyday life was not affected (i.e. I can eat and drink normally so therefore I am fine). Except I can’t drink normally? It’s like I am constantly swallowing liquid “down the wrong pipe”. I swear I’m not coughing from COVID. My palate is just a little down in the dumps. So is my everyday life unaffected? What do I do now that the thing I have been doing every day for the past 16 years of my life is no longer an option? What do I do now that I have no artistic outlet? What do I do now that I have nothing to show for this thing that I have 2.5 degrees in? (I was unable to actually finish the Artist’s Certificate because ya girl physically can’t give another recital...thanks, Obama). Literally: What. The. Fuck. Do. I. Do. Now? It’s really hard when you have no closure. I still do not know if I will ever be able to play again. Sure, now I am sort of able to play for ten minutes before my palate decides “imma head out”. Sure, I don’t taste blood in my throat as frequently anymore. Sure, I was able to perform once since this injury. But was I really able to perform like myself? Was it an enjoyable experience for me? Immediately no. I was performing at about half capacity, and I was in pain while performing and for about two weeks after. I had a full blown panic attack before the performance, and the week leading up to the performance I spent about every day crying in bed. Mentally it was not worth it. Clearly this was not an enjoyable experience for me. I did not feel like myself. Not only did this SVPI cause me to physically be unable to play, but mentally it fucked me up. I am now absolutely traumatized and terrified to perform. And that sucks! I have always loved being the center of attention and performing for people. Like one time in elementary school, I pretended to be a Cheetah Girl and sang “Cinderella” at recess for people sitting on the bleachers...yikes. So now here I am one year later, and I have no idea where to go from here. Mentally it has been awful, and honestly, I have been at my lowest for this entire year. It’s difficult when it feels like you have no one who can relate to what you are going through. I have never felt as alone and isolated as I have this past year. It has taken me time and therapy (God I love therapy...please don’t slide into my DMs unless you’re in therapy) to realize that what I have been going through is grief. I have lost my ability to play saxophone. And that feels like I have lost myself. I realize how dramatic or even nerdy that may sound to some people, but imagine if you lost the ability to do something that was second nature to you. If you lost something you did every day for more than half your life. If an artist lost their hands. If a singer lost their voice. If 45 lost his ability to Tweet. Wait.... “You haven’t though.” “You still have so much to offer.” “You’re still a musician.” “This is so wild, but you’ll figure it out.” “That sucks, I’m so sorry.” People mean well, but they also have no idea what to say. It’s exhausting hearing about how your devastating injury is “weird” and “wild”. Hell, every single day is exhausting when you’re depressed. When every day is a reminder that you just wasted the past sixteen years of your life. So how do you cope? First, you lay in bed and cry all day. Then you drink to numb the pain. Then you look at depression memes. Maybe your friends finally convince you to go out, but the next morning you wake up to a paragraph in your phone’s notepad that you drunkenly wrote about how much you do not want to be alive anymore. It breaks my heart to think of other musicians who have experienced career-threatening injuries and how hard it was for me to even get in to see a specialist only for them to tell me they had no idea how to help me. (I feel like I know more about stress-induced VPI than those medical professionals do at this point.) When you are at your lowest, doing anything is daunting and takes all of your physical and mental energy. It should not be as hard as it was to even schedule an appointment with a doctor. Then there is a six-month wait. Six-months to a depressed person who is just trying to get a sliver of clarity about what is going on with their body, is a really fucking long time. Imagine waiting six months to get your car brakes fixed. Or waiting six months to get a massive leak in your horn fixed. Or waiting six months for a new Taylor Swift album. Or waiting six months for the Trader Joe’s item that you have been hyper-fixated on for an entire year to come back from a production delay. Six months is a long time when you’re in desperate need of something. (And I am in desperate need of the TJ’s jalapeño puffs.) Musicians’ physical and mental health should be more of a priority. There should be more proactive conversations about prioritizing your health over your craft. What does it matter if you can play your major scales in sixths at *insert whatever tempo impresses you* if it is detrimental to your physical and mental health? What are we even doing as musicians and a collective community if we applaud every extraneous online competition that someone wins, but ignore someone who is physically or mentally struggling yet is still managing to get through each day? Not to quote the queen of prose, but when Taylor Swift said “they told me all my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential” I felt that. (Honestly, just look up all the words to “this is me trying” because that song is an absolute anthem for how I felt this past year, and I’m sure for anyone dealing with grief.) I am forever grateful for the people who reached out to me when I first posted about my injury and shared their stories with me. There are so many people who are fighting every day just to be able to pursue a career in music. Thank you to those people who made me feel a little less alone. I want everyone to know that if you are going through anything similar or can relate to any of these feelings, I am here for you. There are days when I feel truly blessed that mentally I am now in a place where I can get out of bed. But there are also days when I am really fucking depressed and just the thought of doing one load of laundry is enough to send me into a spiral. Life is a reckless rollercoaster that I did not sign up for and at times would very much like to get off, and just about every day I ask myself “Well what the fuck do I do now?” Today, that answer is sharing my story in hopes that it will inspire other people to share their stories as well. I hope that it will ignite conversations so that we can start prioritizing our physical and mental health over playing etudes up the octave or playing the gnarliest multiphonic or playing whatever standard we can at the fastest tempo. None of that matters if we are doing it at the detriment of our well-being. We are all out here trying to Girlboss and live, laugh, love our way through this musical journey, but if a bro can’t feel welcome to share how this journey is making them feel, then what kind of community are we cultivating besides a bunch of #beasts robotically playing notes on a page? To answer the question that started this essay about what the fuck I am doing now...every day I wake up and I look at my saxophone that is on its stand. I haven’t been able to bring myself to pack it up and put it in its case because at this point I truly do not know what’s going to happen with my throat. So I am just taking it day-by-day. I am finding things that bring me joy which includes (but is not limited to) drinking coffee, applying to music marketing jobs, and making memes. Lots of memes. (Like the one above.) (Humor is how I cope with things.) (We’re working through that in therapy.) |
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