First blog - what I learned this week!

This week I began searching for places to post a blog. By places, I don't mean sitting at my kitchen counter with my new laptop, I mean a site for blogging. The language of blogging sites is not user friendly, but necessary for communicating with potential readers. It's possible that this is the new way to write the great American novel. It's also scary. Writing and getting published and noticed in printed form may still take an agent, rejection, reams of paper and saving lots of work in your external hard drive. Getting published online only requires learning the language of the web from your kids, attending seminars about social media, using the HELP button extensively and hoping you have something to say.

I would like to use this blog to talk about the culture of significant relationships. These relationships are the people we know who are married to us, related to us, best friends forever, living with us, our parents, our children, our brothers and sisters, people we work with and our inner relationship with ourselves. We are formed by the people we grew up with and then re-formed by the people with whom we spend significant amounts of time as adults. Look for me on a weekly basis.

What I thought I knew: As a young adult, my goals included attending and finishing college, enjoying a meaningful or significant career and marriage for the rest of my life to one person. This extremely broad set of expectations is too confusing. I'll start with college.

What I thought I knew about going to college: Sometimes people attend college for the wrong reason. Myself, I went because my parents encouraged and expected this next step after high school. I chose to attend Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. I started taking music courses, intending to major in Music. PLU had an excellent orchestra and music program and a new cello teacher. I could probably blog about playing cello and the resulting arthritis in my left hand.

I had started playing cello in junior high school after my sister began taking violin lessons. She was dedicated and I somehow found myself taking both piano and cello lessons. I followed my sister's goals. I followed my parent's goals. I picked music because someone told me that was the most obvious course for me. I was not inspired by the cello teacher at PLU and finished college at California State University at Sacramento.

The cello teacher at CSUS seemed much better, but I was never going to be the virtuoso continuing on to Julliard. I could have been more than mediocre, had I followed my own inspiration. Apparently, I was not inspired at age 17 or at age 20 and rarely thought about what I really wanted to do. So, I graduated with a Bachelor's in Music, Cello Performance and then quit playing music.

What I learned about going to college: After graduating, I felt free of the obligation to do one of the things that my parents expected, which is not what I expected to learn from that experience. Drifting through tasks and life, I continued to really enjoy music, collecting record albums, attending concerts (rock and classical) and playing piano. I paid for piano lessons for two of my children and turned up the stereo when a good piece of music was playing. The idea that I am not talented enough to perform music professionally stuck with me-a silly notion, because I could easily have joined a professional orchestra.

Advice to my younger self: Go and do what you think is interesting at the time. It doesn't have to be convenient or college or correspond to what you think you SHOULD do. Learning is easier when you are still a child. Experiment and dabble with what interests you.

Advice today: Guess what, I can still go and do what I think is interesting, but it's complicated by adult responsibilities. I'll make time anyway: I know what inspires me now.

What actually happens: I plan to sing at open mic nights, but get too tired. I sometimes buy new piano music and learn a new piece. I listen to the radio. My CD player in the car and in my house is broken. When I tried to replace the CD player at home, the store no longer carried any. I don't have a personal listening device. I go to concerts when I can afford tickets and had season tickets to the symphony for several years, which I attended with my sister and her husband. We criticized orchestra personnel relentlessly. I take lots of photos, but since going digital, don't print them enough. I make 5-10 quilts a year and just began painting with acrylics. I opened up a private practice, offering counseling to adults, especially couples. I spend time with family and those significant best friends forever.

Thanks for reading.