Number One

I've realized that I don't express myself musically to people very often. This is a skill that I work every day towards: to be able to sense my own emotions and then bring them to life through musical means. But I never give myself the option to do so, usually because I give the excuse that I am either too busy to get anything together, or because whatever I did put together I was never completely happy with and ended up scrapping the whole thing. I realized that I needed to create an environment that didn't have too high of standards. A place where I could express myself any given day through music and share just that with people, without any preconceived notions that it'd be a perfectly thought out idea. Mistakes and all would be welcome, because the mistakes are what was happening with me in that instance on that day. It's like an imperfect musical journal, I guess. A public musical journal. Or blog. Music blog. Yeah.

So the idea is that I'm just going to upload musical sketches onto Soundcloud and then post them on here and maybe blog about them. They won't even be perfectly thought out ideas. Just feelings. Or the metaphors of feelings, or people, or longings.
So I guess this is a privileged area to be: I'll be sharing my mistake-ful ideas with all of you. Whether you will want to listen or not is up to you.

https://soundcloud.com/isaacmiddleton/vices

Here's number One.

Hey.

I'm kind of back, I guess.
I took a break form the social media world for maybe a good four months. I'm not sure why. Actually I am. I wanted to see if I could go without Facebook. I could, for a while. And then I realized the sad realization that Facebook is a necessary evil in order to function in the social world. Actually I'm not quite sure if I believe that, or if I'm telling myself that in order for me to feel better about finally caving in and reactivating my account.

I think I'm going to try to be a lot more honest about things on this blog. Actually, that might be a lie. I might act like I'm being honest about things, but am actually lying in order to make myself feel good. Wow. I'm suddenly realizing that maybe I should rename this blog "The place where Isaac either lies or tells the truth in order to make himself feel good."

Have you ever had the feeling that you're losing touch with yourself? Like, the person that you were three years ago was pretty awesome, even though you didn't realize it then. Actually you were self-conscious as hell back then, and you never thought of yourself as pretty awesome, but nobody else could really tell, or maybe they could, but that self-consciousness was a part of you that made you awesome.
But the you now is kind of a degraded, shittier version of what you used to be, and you wish you could somehow trace back your steps, revert back to that version, but you're not sure how, and you're not quite sure how you got to the place that you are.
Or maybe the self-conscoiusness that you're feeling now, that haunting idea that you're losing touch with yourself, is actually playing in your favor and is just as good a part of you as it was back then, but you're too short-sighted to see it.
I deeply wonder if my major in Musical Theatre has made me a worse person overall in three year's time. Was it a mistake that I chose this? It didn't seem like a mistake at the time. It seemed like such a struggle to choose the major. Now it's such a struggle to stay in the major. I feel like I'm softly killing my soul with each semester of it that I tuck under my belt. My soul and my intellect.
When I first came across the Department, they all seemed to have something that I so desperately wanted, but wasn't sure what it was. Self-confidence? The ability to stand on a stage and have people look at you and be good at being watched. The ability to act and sing and dance. I wanted that. I think...
I see pictures of friends of mine on facebook who have graduated from the department, and in the picture they are singing their souls out on their knees to a big number from Chicago or something on some second-rate stage in Philadelphia, and I can't help but silently giggle to myself at how pitiful it all looks. How unconvincing and cliche it all is. But that's me up there. That's what I'm training to be. I don't want that. I don't want to look like that. Get me out! I don't want to act a song!
I'm the guy in my Musical Theatre styles dance who cringes when we're warming up to songs from Rent, because musically it's heart-renchingly terrible. I'm the one who is doing his tondu's in a manner that screams that I probably shouldn't be in that studio. I'm the one in my acting class that makes everyone have to uncomfortably look at the floor because they don't want to have to witness the horrible catastrophe that is happening before them as I spout out my monologue in a way that firmly states that I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm that guy! And the tragedy is that I'm good at other things. Other things that I'm not taking the time to study, because you can't exactly study how to be a singer/songwriter at Western Kentucky University. But for some reason I landed myself in Western Kentucky University. I'm not sure how. i just kind of showed up. I popped out from Mexico and showed up at Western without asking any questions, and then I was invited to audition for a musical, and for the next three years I spent training how to be that silly man on a stage singing his guts out, and I don't want to be him!

WHAT AM I DOING?

I'm having a severe mid-college crisis, and I'm not sure what to do.

When I chose to be a BFA Musical Theatre major, I felt somewhere deep inside me that perhaps this was the wrong choice. But I had to make A choice. I had to. Otherwise, I would never graduate. But maybe I made the wrong choice. Maybe I did. I think I did, and I don't know if I can undo it. And I don't know if i can make myself move forward.

I thought maybe after college I could pursue a graduate studies in Music. Nope. In most colleges, you need a BA in music to do so.

Did I make the wrong choice?

In the meantime, I'm a bit stuck. I have a summer job at a tiny theatre company in a tiny town in Kentucky. I will be very isolated, however, with a lot of time to think. Perhaps I will come to some conclusions. And the semester coming up, I am in the cast for the mainstage Crimes of the Heart, where I'll be playing the role of Doc-- a mysterious thirty-year old married man who is in love with this girl who left me ten years ago, and has suddenly returned. It's interesting, but I don't know how good of a job I will do, or how much of me wants to do a good job.

I'm frustrated. Yes, I am.