Darkness

I realized something tonight while making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There is a darkness in everyone. Everybody has a defect, a flaw, secrets. The sooner I realize that and accept my own and stop pretending that other people are perfect, the happier I will be.

Star in the making/ Xmas longing

I am going to be a Broadway star!

OK, not going to happen for so many reasons. I did, however, get to go on for one of the roles in Play Dead, the show that I work on. Part of my job title is understudy to a guy in the show. I didn't ever see myself going on, so I wasn't too worried about it. Then I found out that I had to do 6 of the 8 performances this past week.

Luckily, there is basically no words and very little stage time. It is mostly doing stuff behind the scenes that the audience can't really see. Well, they can see the things I do, just not me. I am more than ok with that. I can honestly tell people now that I have acted in an Off-Broadway production. Weird, huh?

Life is going pretty well. Christmas in on Saturday. This will be the first year that I am not able to go home. I will be here alone in NYC. I have been mentally preparing myself for a while now, but it is still tough. I miss my family a lot. I haven't seen them since last Christmas. I am excited because I get to see them in January after the Brelby wedding, but that still seems far away.

I love being in the city for this time of the year, I just wish I could be home for the day. I wish my family lived closer so that I could go home for 1 or 2 days when I needed a break and a loving smile from my mom. But alas, life isn't that way and I have to learn to deal with that. Most of the time, I have no problem being far from home, but the holidays are tough. I wish I knew 1 or 2 people here well enough that I could spend it with them. Most of the people I know will be out of the city for the holidays though, so no luck there.

One day I will find my new 'family' of friends here, it is just going to take some time.

I have been working a lot with the holidays. As mentioned earlier, I did 6 of 8 performances for Play Dead last week. I also worked 40 hours. I am also working 40 hours this week. All of this plus doing reset on Saturday nights and doing all the perishable prop work for the show. My last day off was Dec. 6th. With my current schedule, my next one isn't until sometime after the new year. I really hope the paychecks make it worth it, cause my ass is tired!

I should really be asleep

Sitting here in my room on a Thursday night (well, Friday morning I guess) and I should have been asleep a while ago. I have to get up at 6am to get to work tomorrow. Ugh. I like early shifts once I am there, but the waking up part sucks.

I didn't do much today. I worked on Props for Play Dead for quite a while and cooked some food for the first time in about 2 months. I am hoping to get back into a more normal rhythm. The last 2 months have been so crazy with Apple, New World, and Play Dead that I haven't had time to do much for myself. I am excited for a little bit more free time to take care of that now.

I am happy with my decision to stay here in NYC. Having said that, I am going to open myself up a little more to jobs outside of the city than I have been since I got here. I am going to apply to summer stock jobs outside the city, I am going to apply to staff positions elsewhere if I think it would be a good fit/opportunity. I feel like I've been here long enough now that if I am gone for a couple months that I will still feel welcome and familiar when I get back.

I finally got Netflix and I could not be happier. My first movie being delivered to me? Milk. I have wanted to see this movie since it was in theaters and it should be arriving sometime tomorrow! I am just excited to have something to look forward to in the mail! Looking through the massive collection of movies in their database, I came to realize that there are a ton of movies that I want to see but haven't. Hopefully I will be able to rectify some of that soon.

This will be the first time that I won't be going home for the holidays. I am used to being away for Thanksgiving, but I am worried about how I will handle being away for Christmas. I love my family, but I don't get to see them very often. My life keeps me busy and often keeps me away, but Christmas has always been the one exception. I was always able to find a way to go home. That ends this year and that is going to be tough for me. Hopefully I will have people here in the city to spend the day with.

I am loving that it is the holiday season again here in NYC. I was here for the season last year, but I was so new that I was still overwhelmed and didn't get to really enjoy it. I plan on making more out of it this year. Just being more relaxed here has made it better than last year. I can only imagine it will get better and better as I spend more years here. This really is starting to feel like my home.

I guess this is home

I was offered a job I had wanted for years. I turned it down.

They say you don't know what you have 'till its gone, but I think it works both ways. This is now the second time I've really wanted something until I actually got it. Both grad school and now ABT were things I wanted to do, until they were possible. I got into UCI, I got offered the job at ABT, but as soon as I thought about taking them, I no longer wanted it.

I just feel that there is too much left for me to do here in NYC. I have spent the last 14 months building a life here, and I am not ready to throw it away to start all over again. I love this city. There is some strange energy that I can't describe that keeps me from leaving. I may not love it here every day, but as soon as I think about actually leaving, I feel sick to my stomach.

It is time to dig my feet in and try even harder to make this work.

"Decide what to be and go be it" - Avett Brothers

Thoughts on Grad School

I am thinking about applying for grad school...again.

The first time went really well in that I got accepted to a great program. Not so great in the fact that I really wasn't ready for it, personally. I decided not to go and now here we are.

I am thinking about applying again, but not for Stage Management this time. I am looking into Production Management/General Management this time and I think it could be a very interesting path for me to take. It is something that I am very interested in and this seems like a great way to get into a new part of theatre for me. I love stage management, but sometimes I want to do something bigger than one show. I want to get shows up and running and then oversee them through their runs. I want to be a part of the process of getting it done from the very beginning. There is so much that happens before rehearsals and I want to be a bigger part of that than just production meetings. I want to be an important piece for a theatre as a whole.

I have only found one program that I am really interested in so far, but it is a great school for theatre and it would be a very difficult road for sure. It is the North Carolina School of the Arts. I will be mulling this over for the next couple months while I start getting my materials together. We'll see how this goes.

Who Am I?

24601!

...sorry.

I feel like I am constantly in a battle. I am always trying to reconcile who I am with who I feel I should be. I have so many friends who are married/engaged/parents, or are in their career and I am working at an Apple store living in a crappy apartment with 2 people I only kinda like.

I had so much promise. I was so smart when I was a kid. I had the world in front of me and I gave it up to do theatre, something that I love.

Well, I am working in retail and haven't done theatre in months, and I am only trying to survive at this point. Is this what I moved across the country for?

Life is complicated and takes time to sort out, this I know. I've grown to feel comfortable with that idea. Well, as comfortable as one can be with ambiguity. I hate the idea of 'not knowing'.

People tell me to be patient, that life with come. Well, patience isn't something I have much of. I want to believe that if you work hard, good things happen. But sometimes there is more than that. You must be patient and wait for the stars to align. Well, I don't care much for the stars. I want to know what my path is. I want to know where I will end up. I want to know why I am here. I want to know it all.

I've never been good at waiting. Will I be able to bide my time? Is this what I am supposed to be doing? I wish I knew.

"23"

There is a song that I love by Jimmy Eat World called "23". It is off of their Futures album. I've been listening to it a lot the last couple days and I am amazed at how many different things it makes me think/feel in 7 1/2 minutes.

(Note: if you haven't heard the song, this post isn't going to make much sense)

(Note the 2nd [or would it be Note Jr.?] : you should listen to the song)

The song has a few lines that really speak to me about where I am at this point in my life. The most haunting for me is:

"I won't always love these selfish things."

I've been having discussions with people lately about relationships, marriage, and children. A lot of my friends/family are getting married or having kids lately. While I think it is great for them, I just know it my heart that I am nowhere near ready for that kind of commitment and, through my talks, have come to the conclusion that the reason I'm not ready is because I am simply too selfish at this point in my life. And you know what, I'm not sorry. I can't be sorry for feeling that way right now.

On the flip side, I don't want to always be so selfish. One day, I do want to settle down, get married and start a family, but that is going to force me to put other people first, something I've never really done.

"I won't always love what I'll never have,

I won't always live in my regrets"

This one is a bit touchier for me. One thing I can say for certain about myself, is that I have never had good timing. Something was always wrong. I have a hard time looking back at my life and wondering how different things would be if I had just had the courage to say how I felt, taken the chance, swung for the fences. I've taken steps the last few years to try and takes some of those chances, but I know that some of the things I've done in my past can never be undone. It has taken some time for me to come to terms with that idea. I think this line really speaks to wanting to move forward, to shed the weaker parts of our past selves and be the person we always hoped we would be. But it also shows it to be a process, not something you can do so easily as changing your clothes, taking a different route to work, etc.

"No one else will have me like you do

No one will have me, only you"

This goes back to regrets and living in the past. This is more about being accepted for who you are, no pretenses or judgements. There have been a few amazing people in my life who I felt 100% comfortable around, where I knew I could be absolutely who I was and feel no judgement or remorse. They got me. It is hard when you move on in your life and realize just how important that kind of love is. I hate sitting in a group of people and having a thought come into my mind and realize that I can't comfortably say it out loud. If you are one of those people that has always been there for me at my silliest, most insecure, non-sensical moments, thank you, I can't possibly tell you how much it meant/means to me.

The beginning of the song talks about leaving someone behind and it not being an easy decision.

"I'm still driving away,

and I'm sorry every day"

Later in the song it talks of living in the moment and taking risks:

"You'll sit alone forever,

If you wait for the right time,

So what are you hoping for?"

I love the opposition of those two sentiments. One talks about perhaps regretting a chance not taken, while the other urges you to risk it, there will never be the perfect moment. I think it is something that a lot of people, both my age and not, go through and feel.

It is a difficult balance between living your life and keeping the lessons of the past with you. I know that is something I have struggled with, and continue to deal with.

I could sit and break down all of the little pieces of the song individually all day, but what is important to me about the song is the message as a whole. Its message of the struggle to grow up and be an adult and what all of that is supposed to mean is really poignant to me. It is just one song that has meant a lot to me and I wanted to share my thoughts.

This was a lot of fun, there may be more of these song analysis's coming.