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Saturday, April 6, 2019

Eric warned me not to publish this

I posted this yesterday, and then took it down because it felt like too much to lay bare. I have five other essays I’ve written that are sitting, unpublished, because they’re very personal and vulnerable and frankly I don’t want to burden anyone else with my stuff, or defend my work, or wonder what people think about it. But I read something recently that said it’s not the job of the artist to chase after her work, defending it. That’s a lawyers job. Luckily, I know a good lawyer, so I’m just going to set the art free, and allow you to do with it what you will. 💗




I was recently cast as Mary Poppins, which, frankly, is a dream come true.  Preparing for this role has been a blast-- a lot of uncertainty and hard work-- but ultimately, FUN.  This preparation: the time, the intensity of the process, is a departure from my norm, and has tripped the wire of my anxiety in a BIG WAY.

I've been contemplating how to deal with all of these feelings; all of this rushy, schizo energy that holds me hostage, that keeps me from being present, that kicks the crap out of me. The thing about anxiety is it doesn't really let you do anything with it, it just hangs out for awhile until it feels it has properly tortured you, and then goes dormant in its never ending game of hide and seek.

This is what my anxiety has been telling me lately:  You are talentless.  You as Mary Poppins is a huge casting mistake and this is the night everyone will see you are a phony. You're having fun at rehearsals and you look forward to them?  Your children most certainly feel abandoned by you.

It's a load of shit, I know, but it's the honest truth of what's going on in my big empty head. 

I decided to come back here, to my safe space, to search for a bit of wisdom, knowing I've been in this place before and have written about it, trying to mine the uncertainty for gold. Anyway, I found this old post and it was a gentle reminder that this process is not the cause of my current crazy, I am. Lol.

(Another thing, why on earth do I not just get myself a therapist and keep my issues to myself?)
https://maybethisisnormal.blogspot.com/2016/08/jesus-take-hamster-wheel.html

After initially writing the link above, which, if you didn’t read it, is all about my adorable anxiety, a slew of people reached out and said basically the same thing -- You're not alone. One message read, "How can so many of my friends be in very different circumstances but feeling a lot of the same things right now?...I don't even have two kids, and I'm just barely keeping it all together each day." That message rattled my soul.  The me of two and a half years ago wanted to blame her anxiety on mothering two small children.  (what's funny is I was typing really fast and initially wrote smothering two small children.  Metaphor alert.  Anyway.)  Today I want to blame my anxiety on keeping a household together while learning lines and dance steps, balancing family life and navigating a new frontier of community theatre and possible matching tattoos with my costar.
I'm kidding.  Kind of.



But it's not my kids. Or my lines or messy closets or the step falap, falap step step that I cannot get straight.  I think this unsure, sweaty, anxious place--what I lovingly refer to as the hamster wheel--is what life is from time to time. For me, anyway.




I've spent a lot of my life thinking that when I just get through x -- this paper finished, this audition nailed, this job thing worked out, this baby sleeping through the night -- then the anxiety will abate, and I will be able to accept myself, or perhaps someone will think I have it figured out.  It never quite happens that way though, the x passes, and I'm on to overanalyze and overthink the next thing.  Maybe with a string of easy days or months in between that makes me feel like I got this.  I got this!  Life! Not so hard!  But it is hard.  I feel such duality, and while I can see the truth of my life -- how good it is, how much love and grace there is--my brain wants to tell me it isn't true, that I'm not worthy of it, and I try to reconcile these two parts of myself, my lovely life that sometimes I can hardly enjoy because I am my own worst nightmare.

Here's a few things I want to know:

Why don't we ever talk about the voice inside our heads, the one that tells us terrible, cruel, idiotic things?  Sometimes I think if other people told me their voices were raging at them, too, that would make me feel better about all of this.

Next, why would I believe that voice?  I had this lovely thought last week, put directly in my brain by God herself whilst in the middle of an anxious episode: You don't have to believe everything you think.   The sweet relief of that thought has carried me through a lot of doubt.  That, and remembering there is no either/or, only and/both.  You can be a mother and an actress, enjoy new friendships while maintaining others, enjoy theatre and the process of your daily life.  It is only and/both for me.



I see a lot of these same anxious tendencies in my Grace, and one thing I tell her, that she tells me back from time to time, is "feel your feelings."  Feeling anxious?  Feel it. Identify where it lives. Greet it. Welcome it.  Feeling sad?  Be sad. Today at the grocery store as I went to grab a gallon of orange juice I let out a tiny sob and felt tears sting my eyes.  I was surprised as hell but I let the tears fall and took a deep breath and just felt really sad for a minute. And then pretended I had allergies because who do you actually take me for.

Anyway, if you are not an anxious person you may think I am insane, and I probably am a little bit. But my guess is you know or love someone who feels like this, and they have to fight a pretty big battle to stay in the light.  And if you identify with even one tiny ounce of what I've written here, I see you.  I understand you.  It is really hard to be your own worst enemy, and we must radically accept ourselves exactly as we are.

It is exhausting, this work of life.  But it is worth it.

Now about that tattoo...








4 comments:

  1. I love this. I feel this. Thank you 💕

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  2. Thank you for saying so, Rebecca! This post hasn’t been read very many times and I was starting to get REALLY ANXIOUS that I missed the mark, so I am very pleased to know it resonated with you. Keep staying in the light ��

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  3. I needed this today. Thank you for your vulnerability.

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    Replies
    1. I’m so glad you found it Heather! Deep breaths all around ☺️

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