My Short Career as a Rockstar

I had a secret life as a lead singer.

Maybe it wasn’t so secret at the time, but it’s not a major part of my life anymore, so it mightseem like a surprise to some of you!

If you’vebeen following my blog, you will know that my maternal grandmother was a majorinspiration for me and an amazing tour-de-force of a person (see“Just Close Enough to the Sun”and“Women and ADHD”). She lived in the Philippines in the 1950s, raising 6 children. She had a background in piano and vocal performance, and so she would appear regularly on a local television show, performing opera pieces. On top of all this, she was a practicinganesthesiologist and worked full time. (She did have some household help, naturally. Managing all this alone would not be possible for even the super-est of Super Moms).

So my siblings and I grew up with a very high standard of what was possible for an adult’s life, including the idea that hard work was the norm and scheduling one’s day with activities one loved was expected. Maybe scheduling is not the right word. Filling. Over-scheduling. Cramming?

Taking a chance on a Craigslist Ad

Fast forward to myself around 2010. I had moved away from working full time as a resident to working a per diem job, in order to give myself some sanity and space to raise my then-infant oldest child. But I realized: I was bored. My ADHD brain craved novelty and stimulation.

I was going to Mommy and Me-type playdates with other moms. They had fancy athleisure suits and perfect hair and expensive earrings, and I felt really out of place. All I knew how to talk about was medicine. I would argue that medicine is probably a more interesting and worthwhile subject than how to decorate one’s house or thebest piece of workout equipment for a home gym, but at the time, I felt very“uncool.”And I realized these toddler playgroups were not going to give me the novelty and interest that I craved.

I had been a singer in a band a few times in med school, and my friend had played guitar. We had played a few gigs around town at the time, and I had a great time.Why not try that again?So, in the height of the Craigslist days, I found an ad for a band that was auditioning for a lead singer. I sent a picture of the house where I was auditioning to my ex-husband, in case I got murdered.

Keeping Something for Me

And you know what? (Clearly, I didn’t get murdered). I got the gig. I became the lead singer for a few different bands around town. And I had the best time.

Because as a singer, in getting to unleash my creative self in that way, I was able to reclaim my own identity. Not as a doctor. Not as a wife. Not as a mom. Just as Andrea. Even though all of those roles were fulfilling to me, I had been so busy and so consumed with“the rest of my life”that I had lost my own self somewhere along the way.

Finding myself again (as cheesy as that phrase might sound) was an important reminder that, no matter how busy I get, I need to keep something in my life that is just for me. I don’t want to lose myself again. Because the more I know who I am, the better I can be in all the other roles that I play in my life.