What The World Needs Now...

As I was just recently telling a beloved friend, it has been quite some time since I've been this down. Essentially, it's the same down I've been experiencing off and on for a number of years, only the added stresses of a new/old/re-invented/exposed/evolving life makes things seem a bit more intense.

Leaving the acting world has not always been the easiest of decisions for me. Sometimes I have great longing for that world and those people. Still, I care about what the theatre community as a whole would think of who and what I am now while the fact remains that very few of them could give a tinker's dam. Hey, out of sight, out of mind. But that world and those communities couldn't offer me the things I deemed most important. Those intangibles of personal definition that define a 'good' life. For me, I needed so much more than what my former life could offer me. And, trust me, there was a great deal that I did experience with that former life. Travels and excitements and adventures that most have never had the opportunity. But nine years ago I knew without a doubt that I wanted my life to be about more than a free-spirited and ego-driven lifestyle. I do miss those late nights and even later mornings.

I believed in my 'rebirth', if you will. The moment in my life when I looked around me and said "this counts for nothing, and nothing else counts for anything". I believed that to start over, essentially from scratch, at a later age would be difficult and daunting. Things I've never forced myself to slug through. I am - or was - a runner. It's how I learned to survive. But part of my resolution was to stop running. To be stable. To live a stable life. And I ain't talkin' oats and hay.

I am angry these days because I have reached a certain age where, had I stayed in the acting world, the work would be drying up because of my certain age. If I had done things right, however, I might have owned a decent apartment in Chelsea and taught classes somewhere accredited. I am also angry these days because I have reached a certain age where, by giving up that particular style of life, I expected a great deal more security by this point: financial, emotional, physical, spiritual, fiscal, perpetual, individual, unilateral, (hold on, I'm having fun here...) peripheral, diametrical, umbilical... It's probably my mid-life crisis. I think it began the day I realized that I prefer my drama on stage, not particularly in life.

I have been caught up, of late, in the poor pitifulness of me. My job, my daughter, my time, my word the list goes on. And the list is full of very real, very draining concerns. Some are in my control, others aren't. I have stopped talking to those so very dear to me because all my time and energy is completely devoted to those things making me miserable and yet I feel powerless to refocus my time and energy.

That's not a weightless mindset for someone who is as inherently optimistic as I.

However, all of this party hasn't been just for the pity. The last few months has brought me incredible insight into the strength of human spirit. I feel internally stronger than I ever have. I know, without a doubt, that it takes a great deal more than this to break the likes of me. I know that I am able to handle all that life deals me (which, please dear God, does not need to be much else). I choose not to give up on my dreams, no matter how late they may come to fruition. I choose to believe that this is a tunnel and there will be a light. I choose to believe that I can provide myself and my children the future they deserve if I really wish to achieve it. I choose to believe that someday, in the very near future, the more simple of my dreams will be actualized and the more complex within reach.

I am a woman of no little strength. Of this I am more certain than most. I am a child of God and a spirit of the world and I believe that my frailties, fallibilities and my weaknesses make me that much stronger.

I also believe that ham, popcorn and asparagus are all perfect foods.

If you want something badly enough then you find a way to achieve that something. You will make it work or you simply just do not want it badly enough. There are situations in all our lives where we learn to love the fantasy of it more than the reality. Exceptions not withstanding. The relationships that are much more satisfying to dream about than live. Safer, perhaps. The jobs we would rather slog through not because we have no other options but because we're too afraid of our own successes. Sometimes it's easier to fail than succeed. Sometimes it's easier to say "poor, pitiful me, I can't take the stress" than it is to say "poor, pitiful me, get your ass up off that chair and make something happen".

I'd like to keep writing, I do so enjoy it. But I need to get my ass up off the chair and go make something happen.