Over at Bookstack, I occasionally participate in a meme called Booking Through Thursday where each week a bookish type question is posted. This week we were asked whether we had ever "fallen out of love" with a favorite author. While writing my response, I started thinking about "falling out of love" with other things - foods, music, activities, hobbies - a train of thought that was prompted by my experiece last night. The Valentine's Day concert at the high school...each year our girl's choir hosts a Valentine's Day cabaret style concert, complete with romantic little tables for two strewn with rosebuds, pink punch, and lots of cookies and chocolate desserts. While people sit and munch, the girls perform some songs. Now, it's all very cute and girly, and they dress up in their best sparkly dresses. But in the 15 years I've been accompanying for the choirs, I have to admit it's my least favorite of anything I do. I think I almost prefer playing in the orchestra pit for musical (and unless you've done that, you can't know how horrible it is.)
Last night was certainly no exception.
The singing was abysmal (sorry to sound like Simon, but I did feel as if I were listening to the auditions of American Idol all over again). The punch was sickeningly sweet (what it really needed was a healthy shot of champagne). The girls were dressed most inappropriately (a young woman standing 5 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds should never wear a v-neck, sleevless, red sequined dress).
I am so over this, I kept thinking last night, as I endured an hour's worth of this, and then had to repeat the entire performace for a "second sitting" at eight o'clock.
I think I've finally fallen out of love with high school music.
Sometimes it can be good to fall out of love with something. I've been agonizing for quite some time about whether to keep this high school job. But the more experiences like last night just serve to convince me it's time to move on.
It seems to be a pattern with me - I have to "do something to death" before I'm able to call it quits, become so heartily sick of it that I can no longer bear it for an instant. Only then can I give it up, toss it aside gratefully as one would an albatross around the neck, breathing a huge sigh of relief.
And then the relinquishing is not so painful, is it?
How about you? Have you fallen out of love with something in your life? How do you handle it?