September 8th, 2015 - Joanie Brittingham
- donaldewquist
- Sep 8
- 5 min read
On September 8, 2015, I pulled into the parking lot—the faculty parking lot—ready to get my parking pass, set up my direct deposit, and attend the faculty orientation. An enviable job at Molloy University, even though it was an adjunct position. I’d heard from classical singers and voice teachers for years that I was so lucky to be working in academia. So many highly qualified, accomplished musicians in the New York City metro, and so few higher education positions. I’d been taking whatever singing opportunities came my way—opera, concert, musical theatre, you name it. I was also working as a temp, which wasn’t terrible, but made it difficult to find time to practice, or afford voice lessons and audition fees after living expenses.
And now, I’d be teaching music majors: future performers, teachers, music therapists. I’d also leveled up my singing career, joining the roster of a manager who I believed would catapult me to bigger and better stages, complete with bigger and better pay and professional respect. I envisioned my life—my real life, not the rehearsal for it I thought I’d been living—filled with teaching, performing, and having the family my husband I desired I’d be like the voice teachers of my college days, with their elaborate scarves and chunky jewelry, living for art, but with better pay than the characters of La Bohème, and still able to turn up for their kids’ soccer games.
I still had to temp on my off days of teaching—usually at law or finance firms, the kind of places where I’d sit at a desk and answer phones, mostly bored. I’d occasionally bring a musical score to study. The lawyers and financiers were always interested in the music in front of me. When I said I was also teaching at the college level, their faces would change, the horror that I still needed to do this work to support myself becoming apparent. It was hard not to internalize it. I was always worried about money. My husband and I chipped away at our student loans while still trying to climb the mountains of our creative dreams. And, all our friends seemed to magically get pregnant, while we quietly suffered loss after loss. It seemed like everyone was leaving us in the dust of their careers and family goals as we picked up the pieces of our broken hearts over and over.
It turned out teaching wasn’t easy, either. I failed so badly at my music theory course that the department chair didn’t offer it to me the following year. I didn’t get fired—I was a stellar voice teacher—but I burned with shame at my struggle with the theory class. I’d repeatedly asked for help in the early stages of the course, including sample lesson plans and curriculum. Later, I was told I should have observed other faculty members teaching their courses, unpaid for my time, of course. This advice was not offered when I’d asked for help. I didn’t realize I had been set up to fail until many years later.
I balanced this constant fear of failing again—teaching a large course load, late night rehearsals, performances, and rarely getting any breaks between it all. I began to feel trapped. Like all adjuncts, I was considered part time, but teaching a full-time course load because private, or “applied” voice lessons that didn’t count towards the credit limit. All without any benefits. I wasn’t even allowed to park in the faculty parking lot anymore, not after orientation day.
Five years later, when my husband left his novelist dreams behind for law school, we moved. The commute was too far from the college, and I decided to leave teaching and learn another skill in the form of a piano tuning class to support my creative endeavors. When I announced my resignation, the chair of my department hugged me and said, “You are a very gifted teacher,” followed by a request for a plan to deal with the students most likely to burst into tears when I broke the news of my departure. Their growing dependence on me was frightening—a responsibility too much for me emotionally given the other pressures I was under. During my five years, I directed many students to mental health services and the Title IX department when they were in crises they felt safe enough with me to share.
In addition to shattered academia dreams, my husband and I could no longer afford to pursue our dream of children. For years we’d worked overtime to afford fertility treatments and adoption fees, and by the time the pandemic hit, we were in debt, emotionally broken, and sorrowful. At least the world shutting down gave us space to grieve more privately.
In September of 2020, a colleague asked me—from six feet away in a public park—what my five-year-plan was. After cackling for a full minute, I told her, “If you’d asked me five years ago, I would have said tenured music professor with four children, and I have none of that!” I immediately thought about how the me from September 8, 2015 would be ashamed that I’d given up on those dreams.
Now, ten years on and having grieved for my losses, I have a different perspective. I’m embracing a life less structured than a school year, where I’m free to pursue wild goose chases, and can support my nieces and nephews in ways I wouldn’t have been able to had I become a parent myself. I think 2015 me would be proud. She’d be thrilled to know I take almost daily naps, and read, and have time to practice my music. I’ve sung at Carnegie Hall, multiple times! She’d be proud I’m writing opera libretti, and horror short stories, and that I’ve gone back to teaching on my terms—privately, for significantly higher pay, and on a schedule that fits the life I want.
I know now that my real life started long before any one particular job. And that it’s always been real, through the achievements and the heartaches.
