"This world is clearly emerging before our eyes.
The shifts ahead, the opportunities ahead are massive."
-- Carly Fiorina
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| Tulip sprouts 3-21-14 |
"We all hope for breakthrough rebirth moments."
-- Dane Cook
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| Tulip sprouts (2) 3-21-14 |
"You raze the old to raise the new."
-- Justina Chen, North of Beautiful
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| Tulip sprouts (3) 3-21-14 |
A year ago at this time I was in a dark and scary place.
I'd kind of dropped out of my life. I'd gone underground, buried beneath the pressing weights of insomnia, anxiety and depression.
I'd stopped doing some things that, until then, had been very important parts of who I am. Most notably, I'd stopped acting.
In addition to my 365 days projects, I am also an actor. Theater mostly. But performing on stage and auditioning for roles, in my then-current condition, was out of the question.
In the last show I did, I was so exhausted and sleep deprived that I forgot my lines onstage more than once, which is definitely not something I am used to. During a scene in the show before that, my persistent facial spasm went apeshit and the other actor zeroed in on it, and it totally threw him off his game. In the green room afterwards, he teased me about it and I tried to play along with the joking, but it hurt. A lot.
I do most of my work an hour away in Cleveland, and there were nights I drove to and from rehearsals after 36 hour stretches of zero sleep, nights when I had no fucking business being behind the wheel of a car.
The thing that scared me most, though, was how easily I was able to let go. I was growing ever more lackadaisical and apathetic about something that had once been a driving force and a passion. I didn't give a fuck. And even if I wanted to give a fuck, I didn't have a fuck to give. The passion, the drive, the hunger, the need -- vanished.
I was honestly starting to doubt whether I'd ever get back on the horse.
But yesterday I got a sensation that something was stirring again -- struggling to break the surface and re-emerge after its long, hard, dark dormancy.
I went on my first audition in almost a year and a half.
I think I did OK. I felt good about it. I was rested, calm, confident. The atmosphere felt familiar and right. My facial spasm was wonderfully obedient.
And whether I get the job or not is beside the point. The important thing is that I did it. I showed up. I went. I tried. I pushed back up through the packed earth and peeked out at a world I feared I'd never see again.
Guess what? It's still there.
So am I.
