Photo Prompts: The top 20, Photo #2

~For all freewriting-based blog posts, see the tag #Wells Of Thought: Notions and Expositions. 

Here's prompt #2: 2013-B

2013

     Some of our friends were moving to a nearby town and decided they couldn't bring their piano. If I remember right, their new house had a baby grand, and this piano was an upright. It needed to be tuned, though, so we called a piano tuner who came to our house. I remember asking if I could watch him, and he actually turned it into a little lesson in acoustics and tuning. He showed me "A440" which is 440 Hertz that they tune the A4 to (I think it's A4) and then base the rest of the piano off of that note. 

     My parents still have that piano, and I make good use of it when I'm there. :) When I was five, I started piano lessons and continued them with different teachers as we moved, until 10th grade when there wasn't a piano for me to practice on. I could have gotten a teacher, and I could have practiced on the keyboard that was in the house we lived in for those 8 months, but I couldn't bring myself to play a keyboard without weighted keys. Thinking back, I wish I'd had lessons anyway. Ten years of lessons prepared me to continue through college, but I stopped practicing at 16; since then, I haven't been able to regain that level of proficiency that I'd reached. Now, I don't have my parents paying for music lessons, and lessons these days are more than the $5-10 we paid for an hour back in the day. 

     I just checked the local music store's lesson availability, and a 30-minute piano lesson costs $25. One gives hour lessons for $45, but still... $10 for an hour is nothing compared to $45, and I'd need a way to practice every day, which would either mean paying for practice room space in the studio, buying my own keyboard, or driving up to Alex's parents' house to play their piano (if it worked out for them). 

     And now I've lost the opportunity. I had a semester of piano lessons while I was at school because I knew I wanted to get back to the level of proficiency I'd reached, but it wasn't helpful. At that time, it only served to increase my anxiety, and I failed my lessons because I was so overwhelmed with the pressure and high expectations from my teacher that I shut down if I tried to find motivation to do my hours of practice. I know now that it was ADD that was preventing me from reaching my potential and taking advantage of the opportunities I had at the time. 

     Why does everything cost money? Sometimes, I wish we still lived in a trade economy, where I could provide a good or service in exchange for piano lessons. :P I really don't know enough about economics to make any kind of statement like that, though, so I guess I just wish that my existence, my efforts to make my life livable, and my desire to make the world a better place by helping others were sufficient to compensate the service of furthering my education and musical talents. But the world doesn't work that simply. I could apply for a scholarship, and that's the best I can really do if I'm going that route. 

     But that's the kind of mindset I inherited when I grew up as an MK with parents who were financially supported solely by friends and churches. I never knew the concept of working a job that I would only do if I were being paid to do it. I thought that I would grow up to do something that I believed was worthy of my attention, focus, and dedication, to such a degree that I would do it for free, simply because it enriched my life and gave me satisfaction to know that I enriched the lives of others. But there's literally nothing besides church ministry that works that way. 

     Was I made to have a career in the church? What kinds of talents could I employ, and what job could I make myself the best candidate for? These are the kinds of questions I catch blowing by in the wind every once in a while, and if I chase them, I find myself wondering what I have to offer besides serving in the childcare department, helping with the audio/visual tech booth, and, if I practiced, maybe joining the worship team as a guitarist (which is what they need right now). I've already followed that thought through: I serve weekly in our church's childcare, I volunteer monthly for the A/V team, and I tried out for the worship team last year, only to hear that I needed lots of practice, not only in guitar but in voice. 

     I'm unable to make a career out of the things I've naturally gravitated toward, and, while I'm grateful for the nanny job that I've had this year, it's barely paying enough for me to make it on my own, and it also leaves me wishing I could do more. I feel like I could be so much more, and that while I still have so many things to learn about being a nanny, I wish I could develop my skills in other areas, too, that don't appear in that job description. Watching kids all day rarely gives me a chance to do other things I want to get better at: music or writing or editing or cooking or encouraging peers... I'm left feeling like my body is wasting away because the only part of it that I'm using daily is my left arm. 

     A few days ago, I got into looking at the Free ads on Craigslist. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to personally pick up any of the furniture items I was interested in since I just have my little Camry. There was a piano that looked beautiful, but it was so heavy that I had no chance of finding anyone able to pick up and deliver it to my apartment. 

     While I know that a lot of my hopes seem to fade when it comes to the realization part, I also know that just because I can't get what I think I need or do what I want to do, doesn't mean I'm not going to have joy or fulfillment in this life. God knows what I need, and God has a plan for what I'm meant to do, and He's in control and is allowing these dreams of mine to fade so that His plan can form a new dream inside my heart.

—ACS July 16, 2018

(this is over 1,000 words by 103 but I don't care. It reached completion, yay!)