I've always said that I would never post anything online that I wouldn't want broadcast on the news, and the same holds true for this blog, at least to a certain extent. But at the same time, a lot of the reason why I write here is to work out both my triumphs and my face plants.
Today was a big, fat face plant.
The short version of it is that I stumbled into Newman an hour into music rehearsals because I was at a birthday party for my baby cousin. When I got there, seven pairs of eyes were on me. There's only so much you can accomplish without a pianist, after all. The predictable knot of anxiety tightened on cue in my stomach.
I'm not going to lie -- I hate this job. It fell into my lap as our old pianist fell out with the group and left unexpectedly. I've never had more than a year of formal lessons, and the 15 years I've been playing piano has been by ear and sight reading. Thankfully, I can read music, which has helped immensely in this process.
But then there's the issue of dealing with eight singers, a clarinet player and a flute player, the majority of whom don't read music, learning about what makes a proper liturgy, dealing with the priest's opinions, suggestions, and last minute changes. I know a fair bit of my home church's hymnal from Mass, but often the songs that are chosen for me are totally unfamiliar. Of course, on top of my classes, the newspaper and my freelancing gig, I'm expected to learn all of these songs by Sunday, supply the propers for Mass, and get the congregation singing.
Some days it goes down pretty well, but on days like today we just fall flat on our faces. One month from now, we're going to be moving to the local parish, where I'm naturally going to be playing for the student Masses.
...I can barely hold together a Mass while hiding in a dark basement chapel, let alone a church!
Couple that with having to abstain from Communion because I couldn't leave rehearsal to confess, and leaving my purse in the car, forcing my parents to drive it all the way back up here from home, I'm about ready to curl up in a ball and forget tonight happened. :P
The most that I can do on days like these is take a long, deep breath and trust that this job wouldn't have fallen to me if God didn't find me capable of it. Sometimes, I wonder if He's thinking of the right person when He does these things. ;) But hey, I've gotten this far. And I can take the good with the bad, too. Serving others is worth it in the end...but man, sometimes it's frustrating.
Better luck next week, I hope.
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