I'm talking ALL DAY.
I woke up at 8am, ate breakfast, drafted, ate lunch, drafted, talked to some people and did some research, drafted, cried into some ice cream, and then drafted some more.
After spending roughly 12 hours staring at numbers, I've decided that I should try to get a reality TV show gig. Maybe if I shaved my head and spent most of my day drinking with one boob out, I could convince MTV to pay me.
It honestly isn't the worst plan I've had.
I think at one point I was thinking about selling some organs that I deemed "unnecessary". Maybe someone really wants my tonsils. You never know, people are weird, I try not to judge.
Let's get real for a second.
I chose to go to a state school. I got a scholarship that serves as a tuition waver, and a grant that totally covers extra fees and books. I work 20 hours a week at minimum wage, and I came to school with 10k that I saved up from working all throughout high school. If you think about it, considering that I wasn't born with a trust fund waiting for me, this is probably one of the best situations I could be in as a modern American student. I have minimal amounts of loans out, a nice little nest egg to rest on, and a small but constant cash flow coming in. The only thing I'm really having to pay for is life. Oh wait. Life is fucking expensive.
Here's a rough month-long breakdown:
OUT
Rent: 360
Utilities: 40
Phone: 110
Internet: 20
Gas: 160
Groceries: 240
Fast Food/Coffee: 100
Trainer: 152
Clothes/Entertainment/Misc: 50
TOTAL: 1232
IN
20 hours a week @ 8 dollars/hour, 4 weeks a month
TOTAL: 640
Do you see the issue here?
640-1232= -592, (not including any seasonal fees like a new computer or oil changes, tires, doctor visits etc)
For instance, this past year I didn't have health insurance and I got mono. That's a 500 DOLLAR medical bill that I had no way of paying for. On top of that my car battery died FIVE TIMES in a semester. Thankfully the auto-shop took mercy on me and just kept replacing the battery at no cost to me since it died before the month was even over. Being the fiercely independent and often prideful to a fault person that I am, I lived off of Ramen for about two full months before finally talking to my Grandparents in full snot-nosed sob mode, asking for money. They scolded me for not telling them earlier, and made the problem go away.
They just made it go away. That's straight up voodoo if I ever heard.
It's like money is this magical unicorn that I never can quite wrangle.
Being a musician is just this added stress to spend in excess. Most people I know are just pooping money towards their education in ways that the FASFA never accounted for. We HAVE to see other people perform in order to become better ourselves, and even at a discounted price, that's 15-25 dollars per ticket, not to mention the money you're losing by begging someone else to take your shift. You're expected to compete, and that means application fees, travel fees, accompanist fees, recording fees, and God help you if you don't already have a dress and heels for this season's bout of competitions. That could put you out another 300-500 dollars right there. And for what? A chance at a 500 dollar scholarship and "experience". I just spent close to a thousand dollars on "experience".
It's not like you pay into it for years and years with the promise of a guaranteed income later on. You're confusing "singer" with "surgeon". They share some letters, but I promise you they're not the same thing. Both train for years. Both spend years working their asses off for no pay. But one will eventually make a steady income in the six-figure range. I'll let you guess which one.
All of that being said... I still want to be a ramen-fed, public-transit riding, thrift shopping singer than anything else in the world.
I get that it's cheesy, and I get that it's cliche, but the old adage is true: Money can't buy happiness. It can buy Nutella though, and that might be pretty close...
The feeling of being on stage and sharing a story, sharing an experience with hundreds people, touching them each individually...I mean that's a power-trip unlike any other now isn't it? Music got me through some of the hardest points of my life, and my only dream in life is to be the voice that gets someone through their own darkness. I want to be a beautiful moment in a trying world.
Until that point, I'll suck it up, give up the things I don't need, and beg my parents for the things I do need.
(Which includes Nutella)
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