Defeat Conceded

I have no shortage of things I would like to do or become. From a young age, I have often daydreamed about being something I'm not. Often, these daydreams are about some athletic achievement, but sometimes they they expand into other areas of interest. I have always secretly (well, if you know me, not so secretly) wanted to be a musician. I was blessed, or cursed depending on your perspective, with just enough musical talent to know I really like music, but not enough to be proficient without a great deal of hard work. I just never was quite motivated enough to put in the time to get really good. However, to this day I wish I could play like Dave Weckl, Carter Beauford or Neil Peart for at least a few hours.

After a failed attempt at piano lessons in elementary school (my parents gave into my constant whining about practicing) I moved to the drums in junior high. I joined the junior high band and took some lessons at school. In an act of pure parental love, my parents used some of their scarce cash to buy me a used drum kit. Then in an even bigger act of parental love, they let me play them in the house. (In case you're wondering, I am in fact the youngest child and I was spoiled. I have no problem with this fact.) Over time, the sad little kit became a sad big kit as I brought home some drums the junior high was going to toss. I dreamed of a big-hair, 70's rock band kit with more drums and cymbals than you could use.

Once I moved from home, the drum kit was passed onto one of my nephews never to be seen again by me. My desire to be a drummer lay dormant, just under the surface, for many years. It was awakened about 8 years ago when a new family moved into our neighborhood. This neighbor turned out to be a legitimate professional drummer. He had played in Vegas for years and toured with several big names. He converted his 3 car garage into the drummer's Disneyland. It contained at least 10 drum kits and every piece of percussion you can image. I quickly worked my way into his good graces and was taking lessons not long after.

In addition to teaching drum lessons, my neighbor was also a Tama drum dealer. Since I'm a hopeless gear guy and I'm incapable of passing up a deal, I acquired an electronic drum set. The plan was to play the electronic set with headphones to keep the noise down in the house. This lasted about a year. At the time, we were finishing our basement so I convinced the family that an insulated, sound dampened room in the basement would make a full acoustic drum kit tolerable. Somehow they bought the idea and the electronic kit was sold and replaced by the real thing.

Of course the kit couldn't remain small, so it grew to this over time:

Predictably, my zeal for practice began the wane and in a few years I was hardly playing the drums at all. As our bike collection grew, I decided most of the bikes would be better kept in the house than in the garage. So, the drum room became the bike storage room and the "Pit of Despair" as The Resource User likes to call the indoor trainer set up. I needed more space in the room, but since I still harbored illusions of becoming a drummer the drum kit was downsized rather than eliminated. The result was this:

With the addition of backcountry and XC ski gear the last two years, the drum room was completely transformed into the bike/ski room and the drums were just in the way. Given that I had played the drums a total of about an hour during the last year, I listed them for sale on KSL last week. In my final concession that I would not become a drummer, I sold the kit Friday and it's gone. So after 30+ years, the dream is officially dead. A rational decision, but a sad one none the less.