We were lucky to catch up with Grace Lim recently and have shared our conversation below.

Grace, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

According to my mom, she claims that I spent a lot of time tinkering on the piano, trying to copy something I just heard. Maybe I was naturally inclined to music, or maybe I felt pressured to continue playing; maybe a combination of both. My parents enrolled me in piano lessons at the age of six, and before I knew it, I was already in college pursuing a double major in piano performance and music theory.

My dream was to become a music professor, but after graduate school, I experienced severe burnout, to the point where I couldn’t listen to music without overanalyzing it. It didn’t help that COVID-19 forced me into the confines of my home while the nature of my job required me to be with people. To make matters worse, my dad was quickly deteriorating as he was fighting against end-stage gastric cancer. The whole situation pushed me to reassess everything: “what am I supposed to do? For what purpose have I toiled for? What does it mean to be a classical pianist in the 21st century? Is music the only skill that I have?”

2020 was rough to say the least. I was grieving my dad and grieving my lost career dreams. However, that season of depression was strangely coupled with childlike imagination and wonder. For years, I walked a narrow path to pursue classical music, but when I removed it from the equation, I was free to explore new dreams. One week, I thought I wanted to become a UX designer so I enrolled in a boot camp, but my ancient laptop decided to die. I took it as a sign and withdrew from the program, but I wasn’t too disappointed as I had another dream–many more, in fact. I considered becoming a lawyer, speech language pathologist, physical therapist, counselor, pilates instructor, dentist, and the list goes on and on. I was changing career paths on a weekly basis and it was honestly so refreshing to explore new possibilities.

However, my dad’s health continued to worsen, and I realized that I couldn’t force myself to perform while grieving. I initially tried to study for the LSAT while attending to his needs, but towards the end, I decided to pause and savor the last moments with him. He passed away in September 2020, and I reflected on what he would have wanted for me and how I was designed. He always emphasized that loving God and His people was the most important thing in life, and I realized that I wanted to help people. If I could be of service even in the smallest ways, that’s where I wanted to be. So in January 2021, I enrolled at my local community college to start my prerequisites for nursing school and finished all the classes by June 2022. Then, I applied to an accelerated nursing program and to my surprise, I received an interview. I had very little healthcare experience as I had just started volunteering for a free health clinic and became a medical scribe for a GI doctor that summer. One thing led to the next, and by January 2023, I found myself sitting in a health assessment class with colleagues who were far more equipped than I was.

Initially, I felt like a fraud. I was still very much trained to think and operate as a musician, and I was just trying to familiarize myself with the medical jargon. However, that doubt quickly dissipated as tests and assignments were already around the corner so I locked myself in my room, studying for hours but to my surprise, I realized that I had already developed a habit of focusing for long stretches of time from practicing piano. When asked to prepare the IV bags/meds and flush the line, I was surprised yet again that my fingers naturally knew what to do from preparing my dad’s total parenteral nutrition every day.

Here I am now in my penultimate semester with graduation scheduled for May 2024. Who would’ve thought I would be here today, but I know that nothing is wasted and I am where I need to be. Witnessing this transformation in myself has been exciting, and I’m eager to see how I will continue to grow. My hope is to further my education and become a nurse practitioner, serving the community with both my clinical and musical skills.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Grace Lim, and I am a classically trained pianist who is also currently in nursing school. I started playing the piano because my parents wanted me to play for church, but my fingers just kept going and I made it all the way through graduate school. My heart naturally gravitates towards classical and church music, but I also flirt with jazz. I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with amazing musicians, teaching piano, directing operas, and even instructing a college-level class. However, with the pandemic, I had to reassess my goals and values so I made a career switch into nursing. Thankfully, I love learning about the human body and interacting with people.

However, I would be lying if I say I don’t look at the piano in the hospital lobby. I have this inexplicable urge to examine and touch the piano even if I don’t necessarily play it. I’m hoping to figure out a way to be bi-vocational and be of service to the people around me.

If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

Yes. I am who I am due to my past experiences, and I try to live a life free of regret.

If I went straight to the medical field, I would not have had the time and the resources to study music intensively. Music taught me the importance of searching for and appreciating the hidden nuggets of beauty, of feeling the emotions deeply, and of striving for authenticity in my playing and in the way I conduct myself. Not only that, it instilled in me qualities such as discipline, time management, resilience in the face of criticism, stage presence, and communication skills. I realize that being able to play the piano with little hindrance is a great blessing and I want to use my musical skills to benefit others. When I was working as a full time musician, I had to be strategic in how I offered my services because music was my sole source of income; however, being bi-vocational now frees me to share my musical skills more generously.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’m still getting used to introducing myself as a nurse because this career switch is quite new, and I think people around me are also having to reframe me in their mind because I’ve always been “Grace, the piano girl.” When people find out that I play the piano, they put me in a box: “you must be so artsy. It must be so nice to follow your passions. Do you practice all the time? Are you more emotional than logical?” I get it–our brain has to make sense of the world around us and will use appearance, career, ethnicity, and so forth to simplify the excess data. However, our minds could potentially become rigid in regards to others and also oneself.

Whether it was my innate inclination or the artistic environment I grew up in, I convinced myself that I was the more creative type and less of the logical type. However, we humans are too complicated to be boxed into one category like that. I had to free myself from this self-imposed narrative because why couldn’t I encompass both? Why limit myself with this narrow definition?

Furthermore, I do not want to restrict myself to only my occupation as a pianist and a nurse; I want to remain open-minded and curious about life. For instance, I have no athletic skills and lack understanding of how to use my body below my arms because I solely grew up playing the piano. So what? I’m still going to dance with passion, attempt to kick a ball, get swallowed by the waves, create an unidentifiable chunk of clay, dab some paint and call it art, and run at a 11 minute pace. No one, including myself, is going to limit me from living fully.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-lim-497249133/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gracelimpiano
• Other: https://shoutoutla.com/meet-grace-lim-pianist-opera-repetiteur/

Image Credits
Elizabeth Asher, Haven Kim, Jamie Kwon