"I keep thinking tomorrow is coming today..."

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

It has been an interesting week, for me at least. As a band director, while most teachers got a little over two months of time off during the summer, I only got a single month off. As I have said, that month was almost always spent preparing for the coming school year and marching band season. We were lucky if we could sneak away somewhere for two weeks, or if I could find an interesting place to take the 6 graduate credit hours I was required to take every 5 years for recertification. A few years ago, I took a course at VanderCook College of Music at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. That was a LOT of fun. While everybody else in the class was paying way too much to live in the dorms, I took a chance on Priceline and was staying at the Palmer House Hilton for only $50 a night. However, since I was in class most of the time I was in Chicago, I didn't get to see much of the city on that trip. At least it was an escape from routine.

This summer, since I basically knew I would not be returning to my teaching job fairly early in the summer (late June), I didn't take the graduate credits I was planning on taking. I didn't spend countless hours in preparation for the upcoming marching band season or school year. I took the month of vacation and took a chance to breathe. I took the time to come to terms with myself, or at least begin to do so. I began to write. I started on the long journey towards self.

I didn't really expect to feel too much emotion when the day I was supposed to start working again rolled around, but I was apparently wrong. I had thought that since I made this decision and I had come to terms with it, that I would be okay when that day came upon me. That day was this past Monday. I was wrong.

"Take some time before you go
Think of Monday's coming down
And the people that you knew
The ones that aren't around..."
- Counting Crows, If I Could Give All My Love (Richard Manuel Is Dead)

I started to notice the tension inside of my... soul, for lack of a better word, on Sunday evening. Things were getting under my skin. It was not a good day. When Monday came down I realized that something was seriously wrong. I was not surrounded by my students.

For the past thirteen years, the last Monday in July has been the day that the entire band returns for the beginning of full day camp. It signalled the beginning of two solid weeks of intense rehearsals beginning at 8 a.m. and, in recent years, going until 4 p.m. Two of the busiest weeks of the year for me for so long and now, this day that in years past I had prepared so meticulously for had dawned empty and grey. Any other year, music had to be prepared to be handed out when they arrived, nearly a hundred eager faces, along with permissions slips, handbooks that outlined all of the band's procedures and policies, fundraising packets for one of the year's biggest fund raising events. This year, if those things happened, they would be happening without me.

I didn't think it would hit me.

It dropped me.

By Monday afternoon, I had a serious meltdown. I didn't even see it coming. I kept thinking that I was okay with everything, but I was just avoiding the emotion. It was still there, buried deep inside, white hot. This year had just become profoundly different from the more than a dozen that had preceded it.

"So I put my head on the ground
And the sky is a wheel
Spinning these days into things that I’ve lost
But you can keep all the years."
- Counting Crows, Goodnight L.A.

Over the course of the week, I received little reminders that things had irrevocably changed. I received the notice that my insurance coverage had expired. I received a note about my pay scale rate. Then, the car decided to exact its revenge. It was a reminder of the car we were about to buy about a week before I started thinking that I might want to leave my job. I really wanted that car, but not enough to stay unhappy in my job, with my life. Some things are more important than money. That's just not so easy to remember when it's 4:30 in the morning and you can't find sleep because you're worried about where the money is going to come from.

"Its 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday
It doesn't get much worse than this
In beds in little rooms in buildings in the middle of these lives which are completely meaningless."
- Counting Crows, Perfect Blue Buildings

We do what we must to survive. My students always picked up on the fact that I was funniest when I was under pressure. They loved to sit near me on bus rides to competitions, because the closer we got to the nail-biting pressure of the performance, the more my wry sense of humor would come through. The result this week was this post. If humor is how I cope, then I think things aren't too bad. Towards the end of my career, particularly the last year, I had lost that sense of humor. I relished any opportunity that I saw a spark of it. I'm happy to have it back.

"But i don’t mind the days
Gone rolling away
Cause all this sunlight feels warm on my face today."
- Counting Crows, Goodnight L.A.

Walking on the boardwalk out on the inlet yesterday was nice. Even though it was sunny and hot. I realized that it felt nice just to be. Here it was, the week of the last Monday in July and I wasn't running around going crazy with stress, putting in a bunch of 18 hour work days in the heat, standing on a tall metal ladder in the sun for a lot of those hours, baking in the sun. Last year's camp felt strange to me, but I didn't realize why at the time. I think time was winding down and I didn't even know it.

This morning, I took the car to the shop. The auto infirmary. The place where they cast out the demons and make things whole again. When I spoke to the mechanic this afternoon, the news was good, but tempered. The alternator was okay. It was a battery problem. Now, my car is a sports car. The mechanic called it a "little hod rod with an engine that's really too big for it." It needs a special battery apparently. I never knew that. The last one I put in was the standard for the normal production version of the car. That explains why it wore out so quickly. The "sport" version has extra bells and whistles that require more power. The repair cost half what it would have cost to replace the alternator. However, there is a seal leaking where the driveshaft enters the engine. This would be a major repair... over a thousand dollars. The car is 8 years old and has almost two hundred thousand miles on it. I was advised to sell it before that problem becomes more than the minor nuisance it is currently. I have reliable transportation for now, but inside, there is a time bomb.

Yesterday afternoon I received a call from one of the retail stores where I submitted an online application. They wanted me to come in for an interview today. The store is about 35 minutes from my house, driving on the local version of the Autobahn, a largely undiscovered road used only by locals in a hurry to get somewhere. It is all prepared to be interstate highway when the project gets funded and reaches this far, but for now it is a mostly unknown way to bypass all of the tourist traffic. The average speed of traffic is about 80 m.p.h. I love that road.

The interview went very well. The manager of this retail music store was brought in to turn around a store that had suffered years of mismanagement. He said he only wants to bring in staff with a strong knowledge of music and movies. He wants intelligent people who are hard workers and know how to interact with others. We got along great. He basically told me that the job was mine for the taking. Even though I know I can do this, some part of me is still scared to do anything except what I've spent the last 14 years doing. I told him I had to be able to meet my expenses. He is calling his district manager tomorrow and calling to make me an offer. As long as it is reasonable, I will take it. For the first 60 days, I would be allowed to quit without notice if I found another job, and not have it count against me. I'm still waiting to hear from the game store that is looking for a manager-in-training. That would pay much more. This will pay more than what I'm making now. It's all about taking steps.

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." - Winston Churchill

Now, I'm not usually into the whole meme scene. I don't even know how to pronounce it. But if it is something that is interesting, promotes fellow bloggers, or helps the blogging community, then I will participate. The "Face Behind the Blog" was interesting. I wasn't sure how much anonymity I would want to keep, but now that I am not pressured by an employer and the band parents to not have a web presence (that's right, I my principal received complaints because I had a website, an AIM screen name, played online games, etc. so I didn't feel I could blog unless I had total anonymity, and the one time I tried, even with total anonymity and my identity acknowledge nowhere, I had to shut it down), I feel more liberated to allow myself to be myself. This time, I would like to participate in a tag from HollyGL that I think is helpful to other bloggers. Allow me to present this installment of...

Blogging Tips

It’s very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, check out the blogs on the list and put a * star beside those that you like. Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers. Try to make your tip general. After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends! Just think– if 10 people start this, the 10 people pass it onto another 10 people, you have 100 links already! Here are the tips:

1. Look, read, and learn.http://www.neonscent.com/*****

2. Be EXCELLENT to each other.http://www.bushmackel.com/*****

3. Don’t let money change ya!http://www.therandomforest.info/*****

4. Always reply to your commentshttp://chattiekat.com/***

5. Blog about what you know & love.http://sugar-queens-dream.blogspot.com/****

6. Don't use filthy language-buy a dictionary.http://shinade.blogspot.com/*

7. Whenever possible, spread some positive thoughts and love. The world needs more of them.http://ailema4ever.blogspot.com/****

8. Write down from your heart or head. Either way asks yourself why you ever get started.http://chocmintgirl.blogspot.com/**

9. Try to make your template something unique and easy to look. Your template gives the blogger identity as much as the post content.http://psychosomaticwit.blogspot.com/**

10. Take risks creatively with your writing. You'd be surprised how little it takes to bring out the poet or novelist in you.http://remedialrumination.blogspot.com/*

11. Find your own voice! Your writing should reflect your unique personality. Don't ever try to be something you're really not just because you think you have to in order to get people to read your blog. http://gazing-into-the-abyss.blogspot.com/

--End Copy--

I know the instructions say to tag 10 people, but since I've only been doing this for less than 2 months, I'm going to pick 5 (hey, Holly did it too). If you would rather not participate, that's okay too.

Jod(i) at Beyond the Cracked Window
Dan from Cafe Leone
Bobby Revell of Revellian
Amanda from This Side of Reason
Rhea at The Boomer Chronicles

"Out there in the shadow of the modern machine
Walks St. Robinson in his Cadillac dream."
- Counting Crows, St. Robinson In His Cadillac Dream

"In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded."

Welcome back! I've been remodeling. As you can see, I've moved things around a bit, freshened things up, opened some windows and let some light into this place. Hopefully, it will be a bit easier on your tired eyes. I know... it even looks bigger in here. It's amazing when you choose the right color scheme how much brighter a place can look.

"Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools..."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Back in the summer of 1993, the world seemed so much simpler, for me at least. I was only a few months out of college and had gotten married at the beginning of the previous summer. We had been living in subsidized housing with jobs that paid only a pittance. My wife and I both spent the spring after my December graduation working for our college's education department. She was a secretary and I was an interviewer for the accreditation study that we were conducting. I also taught private clarinet lessons (clarinet was NOT my principal instrument and I barely considered myself proficient on it, but I have always had success teaching others how to play it well) and played in a rock band (Slightly Used), which cost a lot more than it paid, I promise.

As I've related previously, after much interviewing, wailing and gnashing of teeth, I secured a job most of the way across the state in a place neither of us had either lived previously. Also, neither of us had ever lived in a place so rural. Sure, my wife's family on her father's side had grown up in the country, as farmers, but we were both children of the suburbs.

"Let me tell y'all what it's like
Being male, middle-class and white."
- Ben Folds, Rockin' the Suburbs

We soon found ourselves living in a small town in the middle of a rural area. The school where I was going to be teaching was in a part of the county about 15 miles north with extremely high poverty and few other white faces. In the tiny town where the school was located, the white people that could, sent their children across the attendance lines to a predominantly white school in the next town, or to private school. I have never considered myself prejudiced, but I had never been seen as a minority before. The school was functioning under a recent court order to desegregate... in the 1990's... in America. They were under a requirement to hire a certain percentage of white teachers and staff and curb the problem of students crossing attendance lines. The school was short on funds and the building was in terrible shape, having once been the town's "colored" school in the days of "separate but equal" in which separate seemed to still be the case, while equal definitely wasn't.

When I moved into the band room, I noticed that the carpet was lime green shag. It was in a building all by itself at the rear of the campus, with no windows and, for most of my three years there, no air conditioning. It was like working, living, in a brick oven. We had no band uniforms. There hadn't been more than a half-dozen students in the band program for the past four years. The "music" they made on that first day made the inaugural notes of Mr. Holland's band sound like a symphony of angels.

"Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page." - Glenn Holland, Mr. Holland's Opus

When I received my class rosters a few days before the school year started, I couldn't believe my eyes. I would be teaching two middle school band classes and a high school band class. I would also be responsible for teaching the middle school band students physical education. The thing that astounded me was that the classes were nearly empty. They really weren't kidding. I had never done this before and I was going to be responsible for making the numbers grow from the six students on my class rosters to a musical ensemble that could give a Christmas concert for the student body in... what? Only about five months. Before that however, I was supposed to start putting together a marching band to perform in the stands at football games (thankfully, I would not be required to give halftime performances that school year... no field show). I had work to do.

“There's a time when a man needs to fight and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny's lost, the ship has sailed and that only a fool will continue. The truth is I've always been a fool.” – Ed Bloom, Big Fish

I started by looking at only a small group of select sixth grade students to be considered for admission into the seventh grade band class as beginners. No recruiting had been done, and it was not an easy task, since being in the band had an even worse, by far, stigma at this school than it does at most schools. I managed to recruit two sixth graders, one on trumpet and one on saxophone. Since the program was so small, my performances would have to combine all students of all ability levels, from these raw beginners, up to the more experienced high school students. While I was recruiting these sixth graders, I also began combing the classrooms of both the middle school and the high school, looking for students who had dropped out of band, or had been members of the band at a previous school. I managed to find a number of these students and convince some of them to join my band. I lured them into an open house in the band room with an instrument repair technician, since many of their instruments hadn't been played in years, and most were handed down... what the technician called M'uncle horns ("Son, where'd you get that horn?" "M'uncle played it."), and most importantly, my open house featured something no self-respecting teen or pre-teen could turn down... free food.

Soon, my band had grown to over thirty mostly warm bodies, including the high school principal's son, a member of the varsity football team, two cheerleaders, and a talented tuba player who had transferred in from another school. It was time for my first marching band practice. I rounded them up on the football field and began showing them proper marching techniques, just like I had been taught when I was in high school. They stared. They started laughing. The tuba player was helping me demonstrate. The principal's son was trying to get his fellow students to give it a try. It wasn't working. In less than thirty minutes, the "rehearsal" turned into a rout. Only a few students were still present. The rest marched straight to the principal's office demanding that this "crazy white man" be fired and replaced with a proper "black" band director. He left no uncertainty when he told them that the next practice I held, they had better be there doing exactly as I told them to do.

I was young, persistent, resilient. As Paul, the school's softball coach and as time passed, one of my closest friends during those years, soon taught me, "Not everyone's gonna want what you have to offer." He also taught me that "life sucks, grab a helmet."

I begged. I cajoled. I struggled. I gave every ounce of everything I had to get that program started. The principal got a former band director friend of his to put together an alumni band to "drum up" (pun intended) community support for the band program. I contacted the city newspaper in the nearest large city of Charleston and got a reporter to make the drive up to the school, about an hour away, to see the band rehearse. I chose an indoor music rehearsal, and the only song they knew how to play, "Under the Sea" from Disney's The Little Mermaid. My sense of humor and my rapport with the students quickly captured the reporter's attention. Since that ill-fated practice, we had begun to bond and work towards a common goal. One of my favorite quotes from that article was when I stopped the rehearsal for a moment, wiped my brow and said, "We need saxophones." One of my trumpet players quickly retorted, "We need Jesus!"

"Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Not too far into the football season, we had a band that could perform a few simple tunes in the bleachers during football games. I bought used uniforms from a school halfway across the state and drove the school's battered activity van all the way there to pick them up. My wife carefully ironed patches over the other school's name on every single uniform. We both worked incredibly hard. By the afternoon of the homecoming game, I passed out on the floor of my office's private restroom. The hours were grueling. We gave everything. We developed pride... and discipline.

In late October I took the band on a long bus ride to the Lower State Marching Championships, the equivalent of a semi-final round, for high schools our size. I told them before we got off the bus that we were there to watch and learn. I looked around that bus and told them that we would be returning the following year... to compete. As they watched the bands march across the field, they were incredulous. Most of them had never been to a marching band competition before. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. They couldn't believe that these bands were using the same fundamentals, the same marching style I had been teaching them, and were putting together these amazing productions, almost theatrical. They couldn't believe the pageantry and discipline on display. As we boarded the bus for the long drive home that night, several students told me that there was no way we would be ready to do that in only a year.

"A teacher has two jobs; fill young minds with knowledge, yes, but more important, give those minds a compass so that that knowledge doesn't go to waste." - Principal Jacobs, Mr. Holland's Opus

As a matter of fact, that next week, one of my talented clarinet players, also a cheerleader, was overheard talking about our band in a very negative light at her lunch table one day. In class, I stopped rehearsal a few minutes early. I talked to them about how negatively we were already viewed by the rest of the school. I talked about how difficult it was to change that image when the members of our own organization were championing those negative views to their peers. I singled out the clarinet player in front of the class. It was silent. I told her how much it broke my heart that all the effort I gave, all the effort her fellow band members gave, was nothing to her. How could she talk about the band this way, I asked, now with eyes growing a little moist. She tried to argue. She tried to defend what she had done. I pointed out how it just made her look ridiculous, giving so much time and effort to this organization that she was putting down to her non-musical friends. I will never forget the speech, the impassioned plea I uttered that day. I can recount it, hear it in my mind like it was yesterday, instead of fourteen years past. "Give me one year" I begged her. "One year... If in one year, you feel ashamed to be a part of this band, then I will personally tell your mother that she needs to let you quit. Give me one year. If you still feel ashamed to have me as your band director, then I will quit. I will go do something else. Give me one year."

Kelly agreed. She told me that she would give me one year. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. We shook on it. One year.

When other bands ended their marching band practices for the year to practice for concert band performances and other engagements, we continued to have at least an hour of marching band practice three days a week, every week, in addition to our concert rehearsals. The next year, we marched at football games. We had a 32 person marching band and performed The Hits of Mariah Carey as our halftime show. I wrote the marching drill myself, in what was to become an annual tradition for the next twelve years after that first show. Yes, we did march in the 1994 Lower State Marching Band Championships. We finished dead last, but we performed. Kelly stayed with the band. She was never caught ridiculing band again. The next year, my third year at that school and the final year it was open, Kelly was one of the drum majors of the band. She stood on a podium at football games and competitions while the entire school watched her conduct the band... HER band.

"You love music and you made the kids love it with you." - Rowena Morgan, Mr. Holland's Opus

I have taught hundreds of students since that first year, but I will never forget that first group. I can see the faces and hear the names. I'm sure I learned at least as much from them as they learned from me. Actually, I'm pretty sure I learned much more than they did.

Yesterday, I noticed that the high school of a beautiful, small rural town nearby, a town we lived in and loved for the first five years I worked at the job I just left, is looking for a band director. My mind drifted back to the memories of my first teaching job... to those first students... to the simplicity of that life. I thought about how difficult that job seemed at the time, but how I also knew there was no way I could fail. I thought about how easy it had been to give everything, every ounce of my life, to that job, and to loving those kids. Then I snapped back into the present, mind once again joined to body and firmly planted in reality. Things which seem effortless at age 23 are not the same at age 37. I realized that, while I have the fond memories of those first years of teaching, I am now also fully aware of the cost. As the title, from the movie My Dog Skip, implies, I also know that I view those early days through the hazy lens of memory and the softening filter of time.

"I'm not sure all these people understand
It's not like years ago..."
- R.E.M., Nightswimming

The thought of rebuilding that band program, while exciting, fills me with feelings that are not welcome. Having to fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground the program gains is immensely rewarding, but physically and emotionally draining. The idea of establishing relationships with dozens of students, parents and teachers I have never met before and working tirelessly to gain their support would be a harrowing experience at this point in my life. I discovered that I'm just not interested. That is simply not what I am anymore. It is a part of who I am, just as anything I have ever experienced has shaped me, but I am content to savor my memories and leave this opportunity to someone else, hopefully someone who is just starting their journey, to create their own. I hope theirs are filled with joys and sorrows, sweetness and pain, just like mine.

"Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

"We may become someone someday, but we haven't yet."

"It's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin
And can't stand the company."
- Bruce Springsteen, Better Days

When I started this journey in writing about a month ago, there was so much I was unsure of. One month down the road, there's at least as much I'm not sure of. Maybe more. That's okay. I think I expected that, but I'm not sure. On a conscious level, I wasn't sure that I would quit my job. I think some part of me knew, but my conscious mind was not, by any stretch of the imagination, ready to admit it.

“The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life.” – Carl Jung

I think the first person to use the words "mid-life crisis" in relation to what I was going through, was my friend Cameron. When I heard those words it scared me. Absolutely chilled me to the bone. I was never a strong believer in the "mid-life crisis" being anything more than an excuse to behave reprehensibly for a while. That's okay. Not too long ago I was also sure that Attention Deficit Disorder was an excuse to do the same. I just chalked up my ADD symptoms to personality and stayed the course.

As a teacher, I was almost conditioned to look down on the term "ADD." Even when my friends started calling me "ADD-man" or "AD&HD" I still laughed it off and tried to focus. As my job stress increased, my symptoms went out of control. I know a lot of people out there still think the way I used to think. To them, ADD is an excuse; an easy way out. Believe me, it is NOT an "easy" way out. Dealing with the symptoms of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder while holding an extremely stressful and demanding full-time job is a formidable task. Add to it the task of keeping relationships intact and a house in order and it becomes mind-boggling. Since I reduced my stress, the symptoms have dropped back down to manageable levels, for which I am extremely thankful.

"Did you forget about the passion living day to day?
You keep your dreams locked down inside
Choking on a lifetime of 'never take a chance'
Wake up one day wishin' you'd tried."
- Edwin McCain, What Matters Most

Over the past two months, I have come to the conclusion that the term "mid-life crisis" is just as valid. Sure, I've read the research. I know there have been studies that concluded that there was no such thing as a mid-life crisis. I also used to think that the mid-life crisis was unique to (puffs up chest) the male of the species. I now know that this too is incorrect. Some of the best writing that I have encountered on the subject has been written by females. I also know, thanks largely in part to these female writers, that due to a wide variety of factors, this transitional period can occur at any time between late-20's and early 60's. Let's face it. As life spans have increased, this mid-life transition has become more apparent. Advances in our understanding of brain function and in the field of psychology have made the term "mid-life crisis" more acceptable. It is now less of a stigma. We have the "boomers" to thank. As the boomer generation passes through the gauntlet of mid-life, we learn more and condemn less about this passage.

"All true things must change and only that which changes remains true." - Carl Jung

Not everyone experiences the transitions of mid-life in the same way. Our culture has embedded within us that stereotype of the 40-something man in the bright red convertible sports car having affairs with younger women. While this does represent how some of us experience mid-life, it is obviously not universal. What is accurate about this portrayal are the symbols of longing for a return to the simpler days of our youth. We have looked in the mirror and watched, little by little, as the smile that people found so beguiling in our youth, has given us permanent grooves on our faces. We may be watching the lines as they begin to cross our growing foreheads. When we venture out into the world, at clubs and restaurants, grocery stores and especially the beach, people look at us differently. We have more aches and pains than we ever had before, and we have begun to notice that in photographs, we now look... like... our... parents... How did this happen? We thought, on some level, that it could never happen to us.

What about our parents? Many of us are reaching the point where we are taking care of aging parents. Some of us have already said goodbye to them, and the rest of us know that the time for goodbye is coming soon. We see, in our parents, a mirror of our future selves, and we are beginning to realize that this future is not as far away as we once thought. Time is up to its old tricks.

"Time is a pretty pony with a wicked heart." - Stephen King

I took my mother to the doctor this morning. Just as her mother did, she is beginning to lose weight. My father, who still weighs in around 350, is worried about this trend. Now, mom's doctor is also worried. She was told that if she loses any more, she needs to call her doctor. I enjoyed the time I spent with mom this morning, and am glad I was able to take her to her appointment, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I was working.

That's right. If I hadn't resigned from my job, I would've started drum line and color guard practice and leadership in-service yesterday. Now, I am officially "missing work." Vacation time is past. I am now faced with my first late July in about 14 years without my career. No more sweating on a football practice field in the late-July heat, sometimes on a metal ladder. This is going to be the catalyst for some interesting feelings to well up inside me as the next few months roll past. Marching band season is always the busiest and most emotional and stressful time of the year for a band director. I have been on a marching band field from July through November every year since 1984. I am not sure how that's going to make me feel yet, but as I hear the band practice at the high school just a few blocks from my house (they were cross-town rivals), I am sure I will feel... something.

What about career? During mid-life, so many of us find that the careers we chose in high school or college or soon after graduation are like so many of the clothes in our closets. They just don't seem to fit the same as they used to. Maybe we made hasty decisions about our careers without stopping to consider all of the information, or maybe there was a lack of information about an emerging career field. Some of us may have felt our skills sets or transcripts were limiting our options. We may have even chosen a college major and a career because someone else thought it was what we should do. Quite possibly, some of us even chose the best career for us at the time, but now fifteen or twenty years down the road, it just doesn't suit who we've become. Perhaps we've grown disillusioned, made bad choices, or watched a field dry up through changes in society. At any rate, this transitional period is the time when many of us see the road behind us stretching longer than the road ahead of us and decide that we cannot travel any farther without a change.

“We linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood,and they are half forgotten ere we have learned the language.” – Henry David Thoreau

This "mid-life crisis" is a rite of passage. We sometimes hear people say, "I found myself." This is a time of throwing off the visions of self that were imposed upon us by our parents, mentors, or other loved ones. We are not re-inventing ourselves so much as we are seeing ourselves for the first time as what we really are. We are seeing ourselves with our youthful veneer stripped away, but not yet old. This is, quite possibly, the first time in our lives we have an authentic vision of self and we guard it jealously. We don't want to let this new being we've discovered slip away or go back into hiding. We nurture and indulge it and watch to see if it grows.

“We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.” – Henry David Thoreau

This is when we discover that some part of us wants more than career advancement. Maybe that part of us also looks at his or her little piece of the American Dream (TM) and decides that it isn't quite what we saw in the advertisements when we were younger. We look at what we are and what we have and weigh it against where we are going. Quite often we decide that our travel plans need to be changed. Or perhaps, like Robert Frost's traveller through the woods, we simply want to see what another path is like. Frost's narrator in "The Road Not Taken" admits that both paths look to be about equally promising, but he decides to take the second path. Why? Simply because it called to him. Sometimes the grass really does look greener on some other path.

This is also the time when many of us realize that we cannot rely solely on others for strength. When we were young, we relied on parents or older siblings, or maybe grandparents or aunts and uncles. We gained strength from our elders. Then we saw that they were fallible. Even worse, we learned that they were mortal. We began to see their strength fade and fail. We realized that relying on other loved ones for strength often gave us a tenuous footing at best, since those we were drawing strength from were also going through their own struggles. Finally, we begin to look inside ourselves and find new reserves of strength and courage. We see that we can make it through challenges in our lives that we thought would crush us by drawing on these inner reserves. Hopefully, we still support each other, but this reserve of inner strength surprises many of us during this time of crisis. As a result, we focus on us. We give ourselves attention. We start to treat ourselves better because we know that we will have to be nurtured in order to make it through the challenges ahead. Stephen Covey reminds us to "sharpen the saw" in order to make it through the tough times ahead. As we reach mid-life, hopefully, we begin to heed this advice.

"In life we're the writers to our own books."
- October Fall, If We're All Alone, Aren't We In This Together?

In our modern society, we also begin to feel a certain aloneness at this time. Notice that I didn't say loneliness. We may have spouses, children, friends and other loved ones around us at all times, but we begin to realize that we can be in the middle of a crowded room and still feel a profound sense of being alone. That last time we actively sought out new friends was probably, for most of us at least, more than ten years ago. We have settled into the routines of life. We wake up and perform the same rituals everyday with the same people. This mid-life transition has become a time to reach out for other people; other companions on the journey. We tend to strike up friendships not only with people our age, but with older and younger people. The internet has greatly facilitated this searching for travelling companions. I know from personal experience that I have "met" some wonderful people and found some new friends in just the short time I have been writing about my journey. Though nourishing our inner strength is important, we must share our journey and allow others to be able to reach us and affect us. We are not alone unless we isolate ourselves.

“If you want to end your isolation, you must be honest about what you want at a core level and decide to go after it.” – Martha Beck

Once we find our inner strength and make a decision to end our isolation, then and only then we can we help support our fellow travellers on this path through mid-life. We can indulge ourselves for the good of others.

"This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose?"
- Switchfoot, This Is Your Life