One of the most pivotal moments of my life happened in second grade. Our class sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” as our music teacher, Mr. Wilson, walked through the room, listening to each of us and tapping individuals on the shoulder to go to the front of the room. Those lucky few selected would join the school choir. I was desperate and hopeful, and I was overtaken by a rush of joy when my shoulder was tapped.
My love for music continued well through high school. The choral department was my home. I would find any excuse to make my way down to the choir room, so when the time came to choose a major for college, vocal music was the natural choice. I dreamt of spending my life in the choir room with my tribe, doing my favorite thing.
The week I graduated was the same week I was hired into my first job as a music educator, a general and choral music position with grades 2-12. I was living my dream, stepping into my adult life, eager to pour out my abundant passion for music.
As a new teacher, I went beyond the expectation, imagining new curriculum and writing my own school programs, rather than buying something pre-packaged. I volunteered to be on a committee to imagine the new buildings our district was building, dreaming up beautiful, optimal music classrooms and performance spaces where our students would make beautiful music and find themselves the way I had. In my free time, I taught private music lessons and performed in community musical theatre productions.
Colleen Cook works full-time as the Director of Operations at Vinyl Marketing in Ashland, where she resides with her husband Mike and three young daughters. She’s an insatiable extrovert who enjoys finding reasons to gather people.
That all came to an abrupt halt in the spring of my third year, when I was informed that I was one of the unfortunate group of teachers subjected to a RIF, a reduction in force. My position would not exist in the fall due to budget cuts.
Devastation took me out at the knees. The life I dreamed of, the life I’d built, the life I’d poured myself into was pulled out from under me. Word spread quickly in that small town, and I was met with kind words of sympathy from those who knew me.
Some of my dearest friends in the town, my landlords who were about the age of my parents, invited my husband and I for dinner soon after the news broke. The wife hugged me and said, “This is the best thing that ever happened to you, you’ll see.” Her words stung. How could she not understand that this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me?
And yet, she was right. Up until that point, every step of my path had been controlled by this one aspect of who I was that had been identified as a seven year old. My life had unfolded exactly the way I thought it should, and I did not have the opportunity to let my path reveal itself to me. At 25, I had no idea who I really was or what I was really capable of yet.
From that point, I’ve discovered superpowers I never knew I had. I’ve mastered skills that, at that time, I didn’t even know existed. I’ve found myself more capable and surrounded by a deeper community than I’d ever experienced. The pain of that loss, even now when I revisit it, stings. Yet, the gift of that pain and loss are the lessons it brought and the opportunity to step into a bigger, better story. All of the things in which we foolishly root our identity will pass away, eventually, but we continue forward on our winding paths as we are shaped and refined into who we were always meant to be.
