halfway

I think it was a spring and a half ago that I once woke in the middle of the night in a sweat, in a terror that I was going to become irrelevant.
My identity is so firmly stuck down the middle of my oboe. Being asked to play and respected for the results has been for so long the thing I hold up as what-makes-me-worth-being. The idea that I might not be able to stay a first choice or that the world might not always see me as An Oboist used to sink me, because it was me.
I am saying this in an easy sort of tone because I have suddenly made it halfway to irrelevant, just like that, and in the process have discovered that I am ok! and that there are a whole lot more things I have found to like about myself! and whole lot more reasons to look y'all in the eye than just my attachment to a worn down box of double reeds.