Why I quit

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…….. It has been 9 months (almost) since my last confession blogpost.

How appropriate that I used the penitential terminology of my upbringing, because in May, I quit my church job of 8 years at the Cathedral of Mary our Queen. (Note: This is not what I was going to write about but that opening line kind of pushed me in that direction.)

I didn’t quit because of issues with the institution (although, admittedly, I do have some of those) or with most of the music I was singing. I loved the job. I loved the space. I loved the convenience of it – it was across the street from my house! I could literally see the the place from every room in the front of my house.

In fact, I got the job after my first shower in our new house, in June 2015. I was standing in the shower and I saw the spires of the Cathedral as I was rinsing shampoo out of my hair. I thought, “Hey, I’ve subbed there. Perhaps I should send the director my new address.” So I did. Within an hour, I had a new job.

And I was really happy there up till the pandemic. And once we (eventually) returned to singing in 2021, I was happy again. I was a regular cantor and soloist in addition to my position as alto section leader. I loved the people with whom I sang, and we made good music.

My director left in July 2021 and was replaced by someone who had a very different attitude (from both their predecessor and me) toward the music of the church and the role of the section leaders as professional musicians.

I gave the job another two years, and then I realized that I could no longer continue in a position that was no longer serving me in either a spiritual or professional sense. This was a hard realization (did I mention that the job is across the street from my house??) but I decided that I didn’t like feeling angry all the time. So, when I came back from vacation in May, I gave my note effective immediately (Note: I was off the next week for my Irish song concert and there were only two weeks left in the choir season after that, so really, I gave two weeks notice).

The good news is that, by the end of the week after I quit, I had picked up multiple cantor/subbing gigs for the summer, effective with the following Sunday. This past Saturday, I sang my 16th gig of the summer.  They’re not across the street, but they are providing me with more musical and professional satisfaction than I’ve had since July 2021. And hopefully, they will continue to do so.

In my last blogpost, I wrote about my word of the year being Tessitura, specifically about how I was defining it as find where and how I wanted to live.

To be honest, I was already contemplating this decision at that point, as hinted at in this quote:

I may have to explore some options and decide what’s not for me.

There are many things I want to do, as outlined in that new year’s post. And some of those things mean that I need some more time to myself, and not tie myself to a regular Thursday night/Sunday morning commitment. Specifically, I’m going to start writing again. More here, and the book(s) that I talked about in Tessitura. (Yes, plural, because the idea for a novel came to me.) I am also going to do some weekend things with my husband that I couldn’t do because of having a regular church gig, to which I’m looking forward!

In the last year or so, many of my posts were about things I thought I should write about. Going forward, I’m going to get back to the idea of “Why I….” and re-find my why. I think it may have changed a bit.

In fact, today’s blogpost was supposed to be just that: Why I moved here. Because I’ve done some examining about that and there are some things I want to say.

Good to be back and I promise it won’t be another 8 months before I write again.

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If you would like to find your why – and your voice – I have a few spots open for 2023-2024. Check out how to work with me