The young woman on stage beamed.
“She glows, doesn’t she just glow?” a friend cooed as we watched the actress take her bow.
Yes, and I knew why.
For all of us who played an instrument well as a child, excelled on a high school sports team or won roles in the school plays, there is a flash of jealousy every time we watch a professional doing what we once did growing up.
Our high school classmate gave a fine performance that evening, but more than anything she seemed delighted to pursue her passion for acting as a career.
When she wasn’t acting, “there was a pang–a pain–every time I saw a play,” she told me.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda–right?
For me, ballet or modern dance performances remain both wonderful and excruciating.
I sit still in the darkened audience, entranced by the movement on stage, but internally I’m squirming, wondering what would have happened if I had listened to my jazz teacher. If I had attended ballet class six days a week. If I could have the life of a dancer.
Anyone who participates in this self-flagellating exercise while listening to the dexterous strumming of Bela Fleck or watching Pete Sampras serve an ace knows what comes next.
An inevitable rationalization of why that career choice was too narrow and never would have worked out anyway. Clearly. Of course.
Michael Kimmelman, a chief art critic for The New York Times, started playing the piano at 5 years old, but abandoned the path of concert artist soon after college. Fifteen years later, he started playing again.
In a 1999 essay called “Prodigy’s Return,” Kimmelman shares a diary of his preparations for an amateur piano competition.
“I didn’t realize at the time that it would cause me … to reflect on the entire course of my life,” he writes.
Many at the competition felt similarly.
“One woman says she is here because she would always regret not having come; it’s her chance to answer the eternal question, What if?”
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Kimmelman wrangles with deeply ambiguous feelings about giving up the piano and admits to trotting out the familiar excuses when he was younger.
“I wasn’t abandoning a prospective career or copping out on a talent,” he writes. “I was moving on.”
Quitting, right? Which is the nagging element, the event that shall never be named. Too much ego at stake.
I stayed away from dance for many years, knowing I would feel conflicted–and oddly guilty–in that setting.
Still, I am giddy when I watch a ballet. Even dancing at a wedding brings an uncontrollable grin to my face.
A friend who performed with a singing group as a child recently started voice lessons again. Another is taking a poetry workshop after work.
Maybe it’s worth a try.
For many, underneath that old passion, the cause of such jealous angst, probably remains a good deal of technical knowledge.
It’s enough to lay the foundation for a lifelong appreciation of the art or sport, and certainly enough to dip a toe in old waters with a class or intramural team.
Sure, the time for professional aspirations may be over, but it doesn’t mean you have to give up everything for your chosen career, buy a gray flannel suit and sign yourself over to the Man.
The person you spend the most time with is yourself. It might as well be interesting.
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