Try Again

Yesterday, I had my first cello lesson in three weeks and it was r-o-u-g-h. Between traveling, holidays, and a variety of music and writing projects, I hadn’t been practicing and it showed. Bigtime.

This is Tilda, the newest member of my musical family. She’s beautiful and her name means “strength in battle.” That’s right, I’m learning to play the battle cello. :-)

Thankfully, my teacher is amazing and was incredibly patient with me as I worked to remember my articulation and wrap my brain around the bass clef again after living solidly in treble land with all my vocal projects lately. Though it had been only a few short weeks since I’d touched the cello, I felt like an absolute beginner again – all robot arms and fuzzy brained – and I had to do some serious inner work to keep my inner critic on the ropes.

I know I’m not the first person to feel disappointed with themselves for not having done something – or for having done something depending on the situation. I’ve been a part of many conversations over the years where someone has said, “If only I had…” (fill in the blank). Or, “If only I hadn’t…” (again, fill in the blank). No matter the actual thing, whether it’s eating vegetables, or something we’ve said, or in my case recently with practicing the cello, we’ve all encountered a time in our lives when we may wonder “what if I’d only” or “what if I hadn’t” about something.

So, what if I hadn’t blown off my cello practice in favor of other things? Would my lesson have been more fun? Would I have felt more confident about my abilities with the instrument? Would I have played and sounded better? No doubt the answer to those questions is yes. If I’d put in the time and effort with my cello and actually practiced the material, I would have had a very different experience that involved less struggle and more joy.

As uncomfortable as that lesson was for me yesterday, it was also invaluable in my path – not just as a beginning cellist, but in life. We cannot change the past. No amount of wishing or rehashing will change the fact that we did or did not do something we would have liked to (or perhaps liked to have done differently). And beating ourselves up for that is not only a complete waste of time and mental and emotional energy, it’s also stealing from the present – which is the only thing we can truly impact.

While an author or a poet may occasionally compose their work out of order, we write our life stories in real time. Moment to moment. Sure, the past can influence our present, and if we let it, our future. But it doesn’t have to rule it.

We can take the lessons from the things we wish we’d done differently and apply them now. Today. Moving forward, I know I’ll prioritize my cello practice differently because I certainly don’t want a repeat of what went down in my lesson yesterday. More than that, I have a vision of sharing Tilda’s gorgeous voice with you one day when my skill set has grown enough to be in synch with her capabilities. And that vision will never come to fruition if I don’t actually practice.

We can wish all we want, but action is where it’s at. Where the magic happens.

Here’s to releasing the “what ifs” and judgements around our past choices and embracing where we are today. To dropping the mental beat up about what we wish we’d done differently in the past and the speculation about how “if we’d only done it this way,” our lives would be different. We can only live with what is, on the way to what will be. Here’s to acknowledging where we want to go, and to creating that from here forward. One step, one choice, and one action at a time.