> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://fessup.mymidnight.blog/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Unfinished Symphony - URL: https://fessup.mymidnight.blog/the-unfinished-symphony/ - Published: 2026-09-29T20:41:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-07T16:10:58.000Z - Description: The life I planned. The life I got. And all the music in between. - Author: Jerry Fess - Tags: cellist, cello, tony manfredonia, life, existential dread, depression, music, composition, lifesaver, classical music, composer, Newsletter, #Migrated-1791389245739, #Import 2026-10-07 11:10 ### Prelude: Waiting for the Chord A few days ago, I discovered and started listening to the music of an up-and-coming composer named Tony Manfredonia ([Manfredonia Music](https://www.manfredoniamusic.com/?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog)). I’d been seeing his reels on Facebook, and we ended up swapping a few comments back and forth. I liked his music, but what really caught me was how excited he was about it. Here was somebody writing music, sharing it with people and genuinely loving what he was doing. [Subscribe](#/portal/signup) And I have to admit something. I was a little envious. Not because I didn’t want that for him. Quite the opposite. I loved seeing somebody get that much joy out of creating. The envy came from somewhere else. I kept thinking, *That was supposed to be me.* Well, maybe “supposed to be” isn’t fair. That’s who I *wanted* to be. When I was in college, I wanted to compose. Badly. I wanted to write music that moved people and hear an orchestra play something that once existed only inside my head. I really thought that was where I was going. Talking with Tony brought a lot of that back, and it got me thinking about something musicians know very well: resolution. In music, we call it a cadence. You don’t have to know anything about music theory to recognize one. Your ear knows. The harmony pulls you somewhere and you’re waiting for that chord that finally makes everything settle. Home. I think I’ve spent a good chunk of my life waiting for that chord. ### Movement I: The Life I Thought I Was Composing Here’s the weird part: I don’t remember deciding to give up on any of it. ![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/faafda66202d234463057972460c04f5/2026/10/d4e9324a-e563-4a36-b4b6-3a13afae7094_513x524-jpeg.jpg) There wasn’t a day when I put down my cello and said, “Okay, that’s over.” Life just sort of happened. When I was younger, music wasn’t something I did on the side. Music was going to be my life. I was a cellist. I was performing. I was studying music. I wanted to compose. And part of that story goes all the way back to 1977. I saw *Star Wars* and heard John Williams’ music, and something happened to me. I was just a kid, but I fell completely in love with that music. The orchestra, those themes, the excitement and emotion of it all. I couldn’t have explained why it affected me so much. I just knew it did. And all these years later, I’m still in love with it. John Williams opened the door to a much bigger musical world. Eventually there was James Horner, Jerry Goldsmith, Korngold, Barber, Alan Silvestri, Kabalevsky, and so many others. I listened to what these composers could do and thought, *I want to do that.* I wanted to make something that could do to somebody else what their music did to me. Maybe even make some kid sitting somewhere feel what I felt in 1977. Then life happened. Depression took up far more space in my life than I ever imagined. Careers changed. Priorities changed. I started things, stopped things, finished some, and left others sitting there. And I got older. Somewhere along the way, the life I thought I was going to have became the life I *used* to think I was going to have. Maybe that’s why Tony’s reels got under my skin a little. The poor guy was just happily posting his music on Facebook and somehow managed to send me into an existential crisis. He reminded me of that younger version of myself, the guy who thought he knew where all of this was headed. And here’s where my music nerd brain took over. Sometimes in music you get what’s called a deceptive cadence. The harmony leads you exactly where you expect it to go. Your ear is practically hearing the next chord already. And then it goes somewhere else. The chord isn’t wrong. It just isn’t the chord you were expecting. Maybe my life didn’t stop being music because it went somewhere I hadn’t planned. Maybe I just kept waiting for it to resolve into the life I thought I was supposed to have. ### Movement II: The Unresolved Dissonance I like things to resolve. ![Music sheets are covered with writing and red marks](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1752035194494-782ec231a584?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxNnx8Y29tcG9zZXIlMjBzY3JpYmJsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE3OTA3MTI2MDZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080) Photo by [Intricate Explorer](https://unsplash.com/@intricateexplorer?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog) I want the doctor’s appointment where somebody finally says, “Here’s what’s causing the pain, and here’s what we’re going to do about it.” I want the treatment that works. I want to talk about depression entirely in the past tense. I want problems to have endings. Unfortunately, my problems seem to have missed that memo. Chronic pain certainly has. There’s always another appointment, another procedure, another discussion about medication, another morning when I wake up figuring out what hurts before I’ve even gotten out of bed. Depression has been its own decades-long composition. I’ve tried medications, treatments and procedures that I hoped might finally be a very important lesson about life. Some helped. Some didn’t. Some worked until they didn’t. There have been good stretches, too. Really good ones. I’m grateful for those. But nobody ever walked onto the stage, tapped the music stand and announced, “Okay, everyone. That’s a wrap on depression.” Would’ve been nice. Life doesn’t seem particularly interested in wrapping things up. Neither does getting older, worrying about money, or watching someone you love age and realizing there are things you simply cannot fix. I think that’s why we like turning our lives into stories. Something happens. We struggle. We learn a very important lesson about life. We overcome it. Cue the swelling strings. Except sometimes you struggle... and you keep struggling. Sometimes I don’t know what the lesson is. Sometimes there may not even be one. ### Movement III: Cleaning Up the Score Maybe that’s what *Fess Up!* has really become for me. ![white music sheet](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1568057609581-8556cf900d3c?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyNnx8Y29tcG9zZXJ8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzkwNzEyNjY4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080) Photo by [Sarah Dao](https://unsplash.com/@daopao?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog) I’m not writing these stories from some safe distance where everything has already worked itself out. I’m usually still in it. There’s always a temptation to clean things up first. Remove the embarrassing parts. Find some profound meaning that wasn’t remotely obvious while everything was actually happening. I’m an artist. I like polishing things. Fix the ugly passage. Erase the wrong note. Rewrite the sentence for the fifteenth time. Make the whole thing look intentional. We do that with our lives, too. Looking backward, it’s easy to connect dots that didn’t seem connected while we were living them. We turn chaos into a narrative and make ourselves sound wiser and more certain than we really were. But that’s not why I started *Fess Up!* I’m not putting the finished version of my life in a museum for everyone to admire. You’re basically getting the manuscript. Crossed-out measures. Wrong notes. Pages taped back together. Places where I’ve scribbled something in the margin that amounts to, *What the hell were you thinking?* And blank pages. Hopefully quite a few of them. ### Movement IV: Unfinished Doesn’t Mean Failed Maybe I’ve spent too much time judging my life by what things eventually became. ![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/faafda66202d234463057972460c04f5/2026/10/70ad42b0-a31c-4395-83d4-34df63dbc082_1600x1200-jpeg.jpg) Did I have the music career I imagined? No. Did I become the composer I thought I’d become? No. Did every treatment work? God, no. Did I become the person I pictured when I was twenty? Not even close. For a long time, those questions felt like a scoreboard. But maybe I’ve been asking the wrong questions. A symphony doesn’t suddenly become music when the orchestra reaches the final chord. It was music the whole time. The beautiful parts were music. So were the ugly ones. The dissonance was music. The rests were music. Even the measures I’d love to rewrite were still part of the piece. Maybe Tony didn’t remind me of something I failed to become. Maybe he reminded me of something I never completely stopped being. The kid who wanted to compose is still here. So is the cellist. And now there’s this writer guy who showed up much later than expected. Maybe themes don’t always disappear. Sometimes they come back years later sounding completely different. Maybe unfinished isn’t the same thing as failed. ### Finale: The Unfinished Symphony This is normally the part where I’m supposed to wrap everything up. ![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/faafda66202d234463057972460c04f5/2026/10/e4fe7697-00f7-4c94-933f-aa08522c0306_1130x694.png) I’ve told you the story. Now I’m supposed to tell you what it means. The pain taught me this. Depression taught me that. Everything happened for a reason. Cue the swelling strings again. But I can’t honestly write that. I don’t know what all of it means. There are probably things in my life I will never resolve. Questions I won’t answer. Music I won’t finish. Parts of myself I may never completely understand. And maybe, after all these years of waiting for that final cadence, I’m beginning to realize that the most honest thing I can do is stop trying to force one. Because there’s still another measure. And in that measure, I— --- **Check out Composer, singer-songwriter Tony Manfredonia at his website:** [Manfredonia Music](https://www.manfredoniamusic.com/?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog) [Buy me a coffee](https://buymeacoffee.com/jerryfess?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog) [Subscribe](#/portal/signup)