I Am The Camel

It has been a long time since I posted, and for some reason, I really felt like sharing this with someone....but where? So I shall do it here.

I am sure you have heard the phrase "The straw that broke the camel's back". Today was that day. Funny thing is that I doubt anyone knew.

This weekend, I had a coaching session with my chorus. It involves a lot of standing, a lot of metal and vocal gymnastics. Sometimes a bit of physical gymnastics, with choreo, but not this time.

First of all, I will start by explaining that over the past while I have been very tired. All the time. And in pain. All. The. Time.
I had some blood tests done for an annual physical, and will get the results of those in a few days, and will mention this to my doctor, in the hopes that he can explain what is going on, and what to do about it.

So let's start with exhaustion and constant pain.
Add a bit of seasonal depression. Okay?
Now add to that the stress of a husband that has been coughing. Really hard. Hard enough to have passed out at least once. He has been coughing for over a month. He had a lump the size of a mandarin orange removed from his left lung in 2011, after months of coughing like this.
Let's look at our list...

Exhaustion
Pain
Depression
Stress about husband

Now, six months ago, my husband lost his job, and because of the circumstances behind it, we did not qualify for EI, and so I was the sole breadwinner for almost three months. I make a little over $12/hour and work part time, no benefits. He got a new job three months ago, but also is making a little over $12/hour, no benefits. Not a lot of income, and the job market is not good. So money is super tight.

Exhaustion
Pain
Depression
Stress about husband
Stress about finances

NOW...on to today. At the coaching session, we were working on our competition songs, and there was one note that for some reason was just not coming out right. That is to say, for some reason, I was singing a wrong note. Every. Single. Try. The coach was getting frustrated. The director was getting frustrated. *I* was frustrated. Now, usually, if something like that were to happen, my internal dialogue would be something like "Okay, you know this! Relax, breathe, you got this." And then I would usually be able to get the note. Nope. Today my internal dialogue was not nice. It had fangs.

Exhaustion
Pain
Depression
Stress about husband
Stress about finances
Frustration over a musical note

I became like a cartoon character...you know what I mean...a tear starts to leak out, they manage to suck it back into the tear duct.
Then we started working on breath marks. I was having a horrible time with breath support...could not for the life of me make my breath last to the right breathing spot. I was frustrated. Coach or director, I don't remember who, made a comment like "You guys can do this, it's not that hard, just use your breath support"...nothing mean, wrong, incorrect...she was right. We know this stuff, we know how to stretch our breath. Perhaps it was the pain and exhaustion, but I just had no breath. None. And that wonderful internal dialogue was now screaming at me. You know, the kind of internal dialogue that tells you what a failure you are?

Exhaustion
Pain
Depression
Stress about husband
Stress about finances
Frustration over a musical note
Frustration over lack of sufficient air
Internal dialogue

*CRACK!!!*

There was that straw.
I quietly stepped off the risers, surreptitiously wiping away a tear, walked into the bathroom, and sobbed for a good five minutes about how hard it was to just LIFE at that particular moment.

Eventually I got myself under control, back together, and back on the risers, and despite the pounding headache that came from the crying, I did feel better. I curled up in a corner for about 20 minutes over lunch break, with my eyes closed. Never actually slept, but kind of shut the world out for a bit.

Nothing really changed after that, but I do think that hard cry helped level me off again, and my chorus is awesome and hilarious as anything, so the afternoon went much better, with even quite a few instances of laughing my head off with everyone else.

I have no idea if I really have a point here. Maybe just telling my story in case someone else has an experience like mine where they just lose it over something that seems so small, and haven't realized that it built up from a multitude of things instead of that one, little thing.

And that is my story about the day I was a camel.