Unwritten

Another show has closed, and as always, there are a lot of mixed feelings. On the one hand, it is so hard to let go of these kids, to know that many of them I will see again and some of them I won't. On the other hand, there is the kind of relief I imagine marathon runners must feel when they cross the finish line. It is an exhilarating, challenging experience but also exhausting. No matter how much you prepare, how much experience you have, there are things you never would have expected, things for which you couldn't have prepared. For those of you who have never sat on this side of the table, as we say in theatre, I thought I would give you some insight into what it is really like. The kids are incredible. So many of them have no or very limited experience. In the case of the show I just closed, most of our kids had never had a major speaking part or solo in a performance before. Getting from where we started to a finished product was going to be a feat, and we knew that fr...

Today, I graduated from therapy. I began there on March 11th, and I ended on April 11th. The counselors were proud of me, amazed that I was ready to leave so quickly. But I wasn't. I wanted it. I wanted to get better. I was eager to learn, eager to work, eager to listen. I fought hard every single day to get better.  The graduation ceremonies are always bitter sweet. Everyone sits around in the small group circle, and they pass around a pin that looks like a dove, and the members of the group and counselors talk about you and give you words of encouragement. The counselors were the only ones there today who had seen me when I first came into the program, everyone else had started after me. One after another, though, everyone spoke about how positive I was. One of the group members even went so far as to say I had a beautiful, colorful aura around me. The counselor told me I gave thoughtful, holistic feedback that would be missed when I was gone. Most people cry, but I didn't. I...

When you suffer from depression, you become extremely apathetic about almost everything. I wasn't pulling my weight around the apartment, my room was a disaster, I wasn't taking care of my dog like I should have. All I wanted to do was sleep, even when I started therapy and was beginning to see some hope, I just wanted to come home and curl up in my bed and not face the world. I identified this as an area that I needed to improve if I wanted to have a happier life. It started with my dog. Until this point, I was lucky if I managed to take him on a walk a few times a week, but now my goal had become to take him on a walk at least once day. It was surprising to me that this was also something that would make me happy. My dog is crazy and goofy, and watching him just be so excited to see and smell everything he possibly could in that short walk made me smile, so I kept making time to do this day after day. I quickly realized that taking Gus for a walk also gave me more energy....

My first day in the Stress Center is a blur. I don't remember a single thing talked about in our lessons that day. All I can remember is sitting in my small group, leg bouncing wildly, listening to someone talk, and realizing that I might actually have some people here to whom I didn't have to explain in exact detail how I felt. They already knew because they were living through it themselves. This was kind of a novel concept for me because for YEARS I had felt that the only place I could go where people understood me was the theatre. Most people in that world shared a passion, a common goal, and many emotional experiences with me. There are some things that happen in rehearsals, you see, that simply cannot be explained to anyone outside. But here I was, sitting in a room of people who were decidedly non-thespians, and yet they understood. That day, I basically sat alone at lunch. Someone sat down with me for a couple of minutes, but they left after eating just a few bites, and...

It has been awhile since I've written in here. I guess maybe I just haven't felt like talking about what I've been going through... or maybe it is that I have been so confused about what I've been feeling it's been too hard to put in words. For awhile, things were good. I got a job that I didn't hate, decided to make my way back onto the stage by doing a couple shows at HCT, and I was even elected to the Board of Directors. I really felt like I was starting to get to that whole responsible adult place.  And then I lost my job. After struggling for so many months to get one, and then to just lose it without warning... it brought everything crashing down around me. They called me to tell me after I'd left work, while I was on my way to a performance. I got to the theatre early, as usual, and I just laid down on the stage at Longstreet and cried. I remember telling myself that there, in a theatre, that was where I belonged. Maybe not on stage, though I do st...

I am usually not much for New Year's resolutions... probably because I fail at them basically every year... like that time I said I was going to read one book a month and one play a week and write in my journal every day. Yeaaaah those never lasted, but this year I have decided to make some resolutions because I think that I've come up with some really important things I want/need to accomplish this year. 1. Learn to create a livable budget and stick to it. (And by livable, I don't mean never having fun or going out for lunch.) 2. Write a first draft of my business plan for the Journeys Performing Arts Center. 3. Be ready to return to and finish school by January 2015. 4. Go caffeine free. (Not because it's the cool thing to do... just because I've discovered that caffeine actually makes my anxiety worse.) 5. Watch all of the movies that get nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. So, there you have it. I think those are VERY important goals (well, e...