yeah, it changes but it's all the same

well, it might have been new. but it might have been just the same old bullshit after all. I was proud of my effort. I felt like I had succeeded at something important. but nobody cared. Nobody said thank you.

She said it was fine. It was what it needed to be. I'm sorry you were angry and disappointed that nobody needed you to play the service, but actually, I had never asked you to do that. You just assumed. Well, the conversation I had with the pastor several months ago included the part about if the organist is not available, you will be called next. She wasn't. I was there. Somebody decided something else and nobody told me. I assumed I was needed. I was not.

Therein is the current problem. I am not needed.  And I am not valued. And if I am valued, it is not in a way that means any damn thing to me.

My first husband used to tell me how much he thought about me and our son while he was driving his truck down the road and how much he loved us. But when he was home, he was either asleep or gone with his friends or drunk. He didn't spend any time with us showing us all that love, so I told him I didn't want to hear about it, it did not mean anything to me if it could not translate into actions.  I still think that. sometimes someone will say, well, we want you here. we need you here. but there is no useful work for me that I can see. the role I used to inhabit is filled. Even the backup role seems to be filled. It could all be done so much better if someone with a little skill could help out.

I am a classically trained musician with 50 years of experience. I am a published composer. My music resume includes a song that has been consistently performed by a band of some renown for nearly 20 years.  I can produce a new song or an arrangement with practically no notice. I can play both choir parts written on 4 staves and the accompaniment. I can play anything you put in front of me whether I have even heard it or not. Not to mention all the knitting.  I have raised 5 reasonably successful human beings. and it does not mean a thing to anyone, not even me.

I realize that if I can't find a way to love myself I am doomed. I will repeat again and again all the mistakes I've previously made until it kills me. But no money and no transportation and really, no will to live traps me as surely as if I were in a dungeon. I lack self-expression because I lack self. Without my parents and my church and the opportunity to perform, in this setting, I don't know who I am. When we were in Township and I could be Rowan, it did not matter, I could be whoever I wanted to be. Nobody judged me, not in my own home. But that's not where I am now. Now I live in a fucking commune that used to be my family home and now is not. I trap myself in my own room and I trap myself in my own head and nothing good comes of it, nothing at all.