termination

I think I finally understand the importance of having closure. It allows you to move on, from where you left off, it marks a clear stage that has passed and you've hopefully emerged none the worse for wear. It doesn't happen enough.

We seek closure of sorts in little things like the post-concert coffee/dessert, where talk about the blatant/ hopefully unnoticed errors, laugh over it so you won't lose too much sleep that night, talk about the songs you liked most and why, waste camera battery by taking random shots of miscellaneous things (but the people aren't miscellaneous of course..) Basically, it's taking a breath before you plunge straight into the whirl of work, of conflicts, of natural sunlight and fresh air. No more of the dimly lit stage where the only light is the one clipped on the music stand, no more of the unnaturally cold air conditioning where burning your lip on hot water is infinitely more favourable because it makes you feel like you're human (and not vampire).

It's a relief that it's over, and it went quite well; there's no longer a need to worry about whether you can hear yourself above the piano/band to avoid going out of tune -- last night was like one long gradual exhalation. And at the end of concert you don't know if you have enough in you to feel happy but you eventually smile when you walk past the front-of-house and people come and tell you they liked the music.

But there's also a sense of loss - not just about losing the whole concert/rehearsal experience, but at a loss about where to begin picking up where I left off before last thursday. I know this probably sounds overdramatic, but there's this massive inertia to resume reading, to go for lectures, to bother. Drifted through school today in a blank. I think it's because the short term goal took up too much energy and the long term goal is nowhere in sight.