Emotional Support Sisters

One part of my migraine treatment was to set personal goals for myself. The doctor explained to me that he has everyone do this so that treatment does not regress. Being chronically sick for a lot of his patience is a part of their identity, and when it gets removed if it is not replaced then people regress.

I set 3 goals for myself, with hope of finishing by the end of summer. I completed 2 of the 3 goals by then and just finished the 3rd.

Goals

1. Audition for the position of accompanist for a community children’s choir in my area.

• I audition, and didn’t make it. I was relieved because I didn’t know how I was going to fit it in with everything I needed to do with my kids and practice.

2. Audition for a community choir.

• That audition went great, and I’m participating in the community choir. 

3. Memorize a song and be able to sing it to a minus track instead of a live accompaniment and then record it.  

• This one took longer than expected. I have not memorized music since I graduated from college, roughly 15 years ago, and the migraines were quite literally making it impossible for me to memorize. I had to retrain my memorizing muscles, which took longer than anticipated. I’ve also never sung to a minus track, so I had to learn a new skill. Recording is tricky as well. When you perform live, once the performance is done, it is done. You can’t change it. You can’t fix it, and your mistakes are not immortalized on a recording. When you have no recording skills or tools to splice the perfect parts together and make a perfect recording, the recording you get is imperfect and immortalized. I made what felt like 20 recordings and just had to pick the best one.

So I am including the best of the bunch recording to show off my goal-making skills, maybe someday get over my fear of listening to myself sing, and continue to get over my perfectionist ways and just be good enough.

Missy

PS Thank you Amelia for helping me record the video.

Music is from the musical The Secret Garden. Accompaniment is from Curtain Up Musical Theater Karaoke