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date: 2019-08-30
weight: 4
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<audio autoplay controls src="/miniatures/4.mp3"></audio>

I tried to let go of choir when I went to university. I was all set to begin anew. I was going to live up to my parents' dreams of becoming an engineer.

That, and I heard the choir perform during All-State my senior year of high school, and they weren't that good. the All-State choirs were better. My school's choirs were better. I didn't want to tarnish my feelings on choir by having my last few years in it be less than what I was used to.

> Yeah. How'd that work out?

I lasted a semester.

Part of it was, of course, that I started the same year they hired Dr. Kim, who turned the choral department around. Suddenly I had something I wanted to reach for.

Part of it was that, on graduating, one of my chosen families disappeared. I still had furry, of course, and I still had Ash and Shannon, but I was missing a core part of myself, and I wasn't strong enough to not have that in my life.

> You weren't strong enough to do a lot of things, then.

No, I wasn't. I wasn't strong enough to tamp down my mania or pull myself up by my bootstraps through depression. I wasn't strong enough to buckle down on my math and chemistry studies. I wasn't strong enough to treat my friends and lovers as well as they deserved. Not on my own, at least.

So I joined choir.

> You did more than that. You took ownership of your life.

I changed my major to music. I started taking singing lessons. I gained strength from my community, and I got better. I got strong enough to at least learn, bit by bit, how to deal with each of those things. I'm still working on some of them, but that's where I started learning.

I got strong enough to make it into voice lessons with Dr. Morrow-King.

I got strong enough to get into Chamber Choir.

I got strong enough to go on two choir tours in South Korea.

I got strong enough to leave the music education program and move to music composition.

I got strong enough to talk to the department chair about why I wasn't getting lessons through the school.

I got strong enough to stand up to Dr. Wohl when he was called on it and not selected to be the new professor.

> Not strong enough to suffer defeat.

No.

Not the one I experienced.
