You're going golfing with whom?

So I must admit that the past few posts have been heavy.  Over the last year, I've felt the need to reassess what I want, how I function, and what my values and beliefs are.  It's been a rough slog, and the last few months I've sorted through a wide range of feelings and thoughts in order to reach some semblance of clarity, with my posts being a primary source of reflection.  I can say I'm much farther along than when I started, though I still have a lifetime to go.

Luckily for me and you, I ain't getting heavy this time.  Well...maybe a tad.

So I've talked ad nauseum about my parents' divorce.  I won't rehash those details.  Nonetheless, for a long time, my parents' relationship afterwards could best be described as chilly.  They were perfectly civil, but they weren't particularly chummy.  A typical exchange usually revolved around what I was doing, how I was getting along in school, or how much one of my extracurriculars was going to cost.  The usual.

Fast forward fifteen years, to a scene I never would have expected even five years ago.  My father, now retired, at my kitchen counter.  In his hand, a bag full of homemade Thai desserts he had made that morning. (You find out some interesting things your parents are into when they have free time on their hands.  Maybe he should open a bakery?) My mother laughing at him because he never bothered to help her in the kitchen when they were married. In the midst of the laughter, she suddenly asked if she could join his weekly golf game the next weekend.  I chuckled; she had only recently become interested in golf.  But my father, the man for whom golf is hobby and religion, who has a longstanding date with the boys for a round or two, not only invited her to the weekly game, but to the upcoming yearly tournament AS WELL.

The moment was quick, but it gave me pause and made me smile.  That's my family.  Not necessarily the ideal, but nonetheless loving and humorous.  Time heals many things, and what a wonder to realize that it can repair, even make more beautiful, the deepest of wounds.

Journey On

I once wrote about the search for equilibrium in my life.  At the time, my love of travel had become work, and though I still enjoyed it, I was losing any balance between my inherent wanderlust and my need to nest and lay roots.  My energy was pulled in myriad directions, and I was uncertain of the road ahead.  I knew something was coming, but couldn't define it. I could only promise to keep my eyes open.  A little over a year later, those "somethings" have come.

I knew early on that I wanted some life in the performing arts, and to that end I sought and attained a Bachelors of Arts in Theater.  However, I was an enormous fuckup in college.  Highly unfocused, temperamental, and deeply insecure about my own abilities, I constantly covered the fact by being pigheaded and getting stuck in my own head.  I wanted to do what was comfortable, with little regard for my fellow students or the professors who tried to push and teach me.  I had little patience for study.  All I wanted to do was perform, and being youthful and slightly stupid, I focused on finding work outside of school.  Selfish?  Oh, yeah.

However, time and experience level many, and I found my own fear (of rejection, of being emotionally naked, of looking like a fool) was causing my creative muscles to atrophy.  My work had turned stale, and I was too blocked and stuck to find a way to make it fresh again.  I realized I knew so little. I also noticed that the same fear had infected my every day relationships.  I was terrified of letting people get too close, for fear they would see me for what I felt I was: a fraud. The feeling had been there in college, and by my mid-twenties, I could barely show people I cared about them because I was too afraid of both the possibly of getting hurt and the guilt and responsibility should my actions hurt them.

As spring of 2011 came, I admitted to myself how much more I needed to learn in work and in life. I ventured to open myself up in my work, and to not make safe or easy choices.  In other words, I allowed myself to play.  With Miss Saigon, I began performing with this new consciousness, and saw myself becoming emotionally and mentally invested in my work.  It was exhilarating.  I knew I had to work more, if only to give me the chance to push myself again.

I moved back to Los Angeles and started auditioning with a vengeance.  Each one was a lesson, with every call back a chance to play and make strong, active choices.  I treated each as if it were a miniature performance class, even if the goal was to eventually land a job.  Thankfully, I was cast in A Chorus Line, a show that will surely test my physical endurance and emotional resilience.  Having rediscovered the passion and fearlessness in my work after so long, I can not wait to begin.  Finally, after much consideration, I applied to graduate school, with summer audition dates for entry in the fall of 2012.  I've always sought to further my education, not only to give myself the opportunity to rectify my past, but to lay the groundwork for a stabler, more intelligent, more thoughtful approach to my career and my art.

At the same time as my arrival in Los Angeles, I began to examine my fears, and started to open myself up to those I care about, as well as those that have newly come into my life.  The former gives such relief, because now I no longer have to hide.  The latter, however, is incredibly daunting for me, because it touches on so much emotion, both positive and negative, that I must sort through while doing the getting-to-know-you dance.  I will be the first to say that I can still fall back into my head, running through several thoughts all at once, in turn making me self-conscious, lethargic, or scatterbrained, even if I strive not to be.  Either way, it has allowed me the chance to take responsibility for myself, and learn how to actively love.  I want to be impeccable in my actions and my care of others.  The experience has been liberating and terrifying which, I suppose, is the ambivalence of being alive.

When I openly wondered over a year ago about the path of my life, and the disquiet I felt towards impending unknowns, I knew those circumstances could change how I work and live.  Reflecting now, I see that that anxiety and anticipation signaled that change and growth were coming quickly, even in that moment.  How much I will change and grow remains to be seen, but as with all things worth having, the end is never the goal.  The journey towards that end is.  And for all those I love and will love, and for the work I am beginning to delight in anew, that journey will never cease.