don’t get me wrong, i know what my day job is. it’s the same as my night job. it’s my all the time job, being mom…

i ran across the title of this post when searching for topics to blog about. it immediately grabbed my attention because i am constantly using the word passionate. mostly about others, though. as in, mike is passionate about running, about his family, etc. when it comes to me, i’m stumped. many times, i feel that i’m passionate about too many things. really, do i have to choose? but there are also times in my life that the passion has felt zapped. i’m not sure what makes the difference. maybe it’s my realization that i’m doing something i love to do that makes the difference and adds an extra spark.

sometimes it takes missing something to make me realize what i had. for example, in my teen years i was passionate about music. i played piano, which was my first musical love, sang in choir both at church and school, and was in school band. it was a true passion. especially piano. i played all the time and it partly defined who i was. then when i decided against majoring in music during my freshman year of college and became occupied with other things (work, school, then teaching, and mike:) music kind of fell to the wayside.

i didn’t realize how much i missed that part of who i was until i began teaching beginner piano lessons upon the birth of our first child. and then, it was a job. i didn’t dislike it, but i enjoyed the kids i taught way more than the musical part of it.

later i became part of the praise band at our church and loved that. but again, i think it was the people and camaraderie that i enjoyed even more than the music. funny, now that i think about it. i learned so much playing keyboard with that group. it was a totally different musical aspect than teaching piano lessons. when we moved to alaska that was one of the biggest things i missed. i would go to church and just ache to be up there playing simple chords coming out as “strings” on the keyboard. but i wasn’t. and i still am not.

hopefully music will someday come back around for me… you know, in my spare time.

to be continued…