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.