For whatever reason, a whole bunch of my academic mojo was late coming back from BC this semester. A really deep part of me has been yearning for this time last year, when I was just deciding to become a musicology major and everything was bright and new and exciting, and I would spend every single spare moment reading about Haydn and Mozart and Beethoven, or listening to new pieces of repertoire I'd never heard before, or reading about writing techniques or musicological research methodology.
When musicology was my infatuation, it was easy to be in love with it.
Some infatuations fade and die away, like a summer fling that was never meant to last. You look back on it with fond memories, knowing that while it was pleasant, it isn't something that ultimately changed or defined you.
This is not that way.
Some infatuations grow beyond themselves into love.
Lasting love; the kind that weathers storms and bad days and sickness and tragedy and all that stuff of life. A sense of this person or thing that has created and shaped you, and, though not holding all of your identity, somehow, somewhere, became inextricable from who you are.
Love is complicated. It requires give and take, and making room for imperfections, and rough patches, and pain...all those day-in, day-out, long-term things. Eventually (so I'm told), it falls into a routine, and feels more like companionship, with a distant memory of what was once fiery passion.
That's kind of where I'm at with musicology right now. I'm in the routine, the slightly mundane, the companionship. Musicology has settled from something new and exciting...into part of my identity. It's a defining factor as much so as "Rena, 21, Canadian, female." Most everyone that knows me knows that I'm studying music history; it's an assumed part of my identity. That has pros and cons. Every now and then it gets boring, or I feel stuck in a rut, or like I'm not really meant for this. Was this really where I wanted my life to be or go? Is this really something I want to be defined by and mediated through, to some extent? When you're getting past infatuation and into love, it's not always easy. It's really hard.
Like those days when I feel like I'll never learn all the necessary information. Or when I'd really, really rather play the piano than go to German class so I can learn to read German research. Or when I'm so tired of core classes (the classes I have to take before research seminars) that I could scream. Or the days when I really wish I had some other musicology majors around, cause every now and then being the ONLY historical musicology major in an entire music school gets a little isolating.
Except then - and this is where the
lasting part comes in - I have a memory of some point of my early infatuation, or I create a new memory, or I see something that's always been there, only in a new light. Or I see something altogether new...
And I fall in love all over again.
