The Long Way Around – Dixie Chicks 2006

I can’t believe it’s taking me this long to get back into posting… and I’m not sure some people will find me again very easy. It’s hard to read a depressed persons blog… well, hopefully this won’t be hard to read because the proverbial light at the end of the proverbial tunnel is just about freakin’ blinding me I’ve got so much ahead of me now!

First of all, let’s talk about Disney. Truth be told I helped Disney set me up to fire me. There were a couple of days where my depression got the better of me and I didn’t go into work on a Saturday when I was asked to, and I forgot to take my time out of our database because, well, I simply didn’t care if they paid me or not for it. When they did, I just shrugged and said “they don’t care, it’s Disney” I only did this twice though. Once was to meet up with Glenn, the guy who dumped me twice (before he dumped me either time). So yeah, I shot myself in the foot at Disney. Funny thing is I worked for them again as a temp, so I know they’d hire me back. And as for my position? Well, they absorbed it, so apparently they were looking for excuses to let me go, and I gave it to them.

Speaking of Glenn, the guy who dumped me twice, it turns out that his good friend JR, who got me a job at a payroll company for the industry where he works, finally confessed to me after almost a year working there that Glenn is indeed still pretty much in love with his ex whom he shares a house with. I wish Glenn the best, I really do. He’s a good man stuck on a love that was never meant to be.  Which, sadly, makes me pity him just a little.

Speaking of pity! HAH! Thank you to all of my blogger friends out there who took pity on me when I was in the bowels of my own personal hell. I thank you for your love and support and hope that someday I will be able to thank each of you and return the favor in some way!

Speaking of me, and who doesn’t LOVE that subject!, I’m still working for the payroll company. I’m coming upon my year anniversary on July 9th which means a raise, a buck more an hour, and I’m up for a promotion to payroll coordinator! So business is good!

I’m dating again, a few great guys actually. Making new friends and looking forward to the future. The most exciting possibility is a wonderful guy I’m going to visit at the end of the month in San Francisco. He has my attention that’s for sure. A 5th grade school teacher who runs a kids theatre camp in the summers (they’re starting today in fact!). He’s gorgeous, he’s so much fun to talk to and I can’t wait to meet him. Yes, that’s right, we’ve been talking every day for nearly a month, and though we have webcammed, it is a strange way to hold a relationship, I agree.

But who knows, I think I might just love San Fran so much a move might be in my future. I’d thought about it long before I met him, he just helped put the icing on the cake of reasons why! Oh, and the best part, he’s older than me! He’s not 30 years older like Lyle, or 26 years older like Glenn, not even 20 years older like John! He’ll be turning 34 tomorrow. I turned 33 in April. I can’t believe I’m so hot for a guy my own age! It’s crazy! Ok, so it’s crazy for me, it’s normal for everyone else out there!

So if you haven’t figured it out from reading this post I’m done with the existential bullshit about crossing bridges and cities of dreams… hmmmm… that sounds an awful lot like San Francisco doesn’t it… maybe I’m not as done as I thought… time will tell…

My Friends – Stephen Sondheim (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street–1979)

Sitting in the dark alone in my room I notice that there’s still light that filters through, from street lamps and headlights, stars and moon, the shadows keep me company and I’m not alone as I once felt. Old friends and recent lovers reconnect me to the world, if only in conversations, and keep me buoyant in a sea of doubt.

Doubts about myself, about where I am and the path I’m on, and though the narrow beam I walk has no guardrails or rope support, a rotting tree across a giant ravine, I keep my balance and slowly walk its length knowing that eventually I will see the other side. This is a dark path, yes, but a necessary one to see the lights of the city where my dreams now live, waiting for me to come home to them.

Though I find myself frustrated and angry, with decisions I’ve made and those that have been made for me, I see that the only way for me to break this cycle is to fix the problems created by those decisions, and when all is done to move on, reborn from the ashes.

“At last, my arm is complete again!”

Being Alive – Stephen Sondheim (Company – 1970)

Black and white days fill the corners of my life as color and light dance inside my head, waiting for me to explode with rhythm and joy or implode with chaos and destruction, one side cries out for a rainbow full of hope and rebirth, the other nothing but crimson in bright patches across a tattered life. These thoughts morose don’t please me any more than they must please you. This solitary shipwreck I’ve partially been thrown in to, partially caused, finds me sitting on the jagged rocks of an ocean of doubt with no tail; as the waves break against the foundation threatening to drown me if I move one inch.

The fear has subsided, the longing has left, and there is only a sense of being comfortably numb. I’ve no desires to pursue; no thoughts of future days but of those that see my universe grow dark. I’m spiraling in place; a statue caught in a vortex, the only place to go is down.

Going through the motions every day somehow hoping that my world will come to an end and that I’ll get a second chance to chase the stars in another lifetime is all the dreams I am left with, the others crushed between time and disappointment, folly and heartache.

Please gods, let me keep moving on, let me start being alive again, help me find the spark to ignite, the tail to swim away with, the stars to ride the cosmos; help me dream again, I’m so lost without my dreams.

Everybody Wants The Same Thing – Scissor Sisters (Ta-Dah – 2006)

The weekend pressed in on me like a heat wave in Chicago. Friends called but somehow we kept leaving voice mails instead of really connecting. My roommate had a visitor, and being not entirely comfortable around strange people in my own home, I isolated myself as much as possible to my bedroom save the trips to the refrigerator to look for food I longed for but wasn’t there finally to settle on the frozen burritos or chicken corn dogs I could afford and the connecting bathroom to empty buckets of water that my portable air conditioner made along with those made by my bladder.

My not really but kind of sort of ex, the unrequited love of my life, is off on a field trip with a thousand Bears while I sit and stare at streaming episodes of Doctor Who and play video games on my computer all weekend. I can’t help but think this is all there is. I feel too old and fat to ever do anything with my voice, especially in Hollywood the land of the pretty plastic people, and too depressed and alone to want to even try to make it to a local bar where I can sit in the corner staring at and drinking with all the other depressed, lonely, fat and old gay people in my neighborhood.

My wants don’t really seem to matter at the present because my needs, including food, don’t really seem to matter either. I’m fatigued and weary. Sad without being angry, which is far worse than the angry sorrow I used to feel, two emotions for the price of one seems to be a long forgotten bargain these days.

I look forward to the respite of work but even there what should have been a minor drama has caused a rift between friends of one person, that would be me, and everyone else that seems to have forced me into a corner for being friendly to the wrong person, yes, I work with 12, sorry, 21 year olds. No good deed goes unpunished indeed, but that’s another song and another story.

I just want this dull ache to end, for life to return to a more normal state, I know intellectually that it will happen in time, but in my heart time stands still and I float in the deep, waiting for contact. Just like everyone else.

It Needs Work – Cy Coleman (City Of Angels 1989)

I’m not honest with myself most of the time. I try to have as few needs as possible, which has a tendency to drive me insane and send me into a deep depression. This would explain the last five years. Destroying, very much like Krishna, everything I had created in Chicago, homes, friendships, bridges, everything.

I know I’m not honest with my needs because I believe, however true or false, that I don’t deserve to have my wants, which are actually needs that I deny myself. This is why I’m miserable.

Funny thing about losing my job, when the unemployment insurance ran out after six months and I couldn’t find a job, not even a temp job, to save my life, and I mean that literally, being nearly homeless and suicidal might very well be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

 

I’ve got a wonderful job now, even if I make a few thousand less a year than I did, the opportunities here are greater and the atmosphere much more pleasant.

I find myself moving things around on my “needs and wants” list, and yes, I actually have one.

First up on the list, and only because it’s something I can do immediately, is my own apartment. I need to live by myself now, this is no longer a want it’s a need for my sanity and survival, and it’s also something I’ve never done before.

Second on the list is to get back to my art, my writing outside of ‘moving on’ and my music, again this had become a want, it is now a desperate need to use my gifts, for the reasons they were given to me.

For my heart to mend itself from the hurt of the last five years this is my biggest need, beyond food and shelter, health and money, this is my greatest need, to find a way to sing. That’s how important it is to me, or how important it used to be, I want that, no, need that back more than anything.

So yes, it needs work, time to roll up those sleeves.

I’m Still Hurting – Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years – 2001)

It’s been almost six months since the last man I dated told me that he wasn’t in love with me; that he could never be in love with me, which was the last proverbial straw, and so I fell deep and far away from life.

We’ve remained friends, though that took a little time to adjust to, we’ve also remained intimate which is probably a mistake as it’s still confusing as to where the boundaries are. I use him to feel. To fool myself into believing, if just for a few moments, that I am wanted.

I’m not sure what he gets out of this in the end, whether he feels guilty for breaking my heart, which in perspective wasn’t his fault at all as his feelings for me are as uncontrollable as mine are for him, so he allows me this ‘bonus’ time with him, whether he needs an intimate friend with whom he doesn’t have to think about the future with, or if he views me more as a puppy, devoted and pitiable.

My shattered heart was certainly not his fault; the cracks had been made over the years, each one deeper and more intrusive, I’m not much of one to make regular doctor appointments so it shouldn’t be too surprising that I never took the time to heal from relationships ending before dragging myself into the next sure-to-fail relationship.

The prospect of moving on from the abusive men, the manipulative men, the child-men of my past was always somewhat easy, there was always some blame to give to the reasons why it never worked out, I was always loved in some way, twisted or true, but never was a relationship truly healthy; and only two held any real sense of caring and hope, at least from my end.

My first partner was an incredible man, to this day a little of me loves him very much. He left me in Chicago so as to get joint custody of his two sons so he could be a part of their lives, how can I blame this man for making that choice, I had been in his life for eight months, who knew where we were going together, but his children without their father would have been a tragedy.

And then there is this unrequited love. I would rather have him hit me and love me than never love me at all. That will surprise some people, but I’ve been through the hitting, the emotional abuse, and for me, the pain was much less than this, it healed faster too.

Of course, if he had been that man I never would have fallen in love with him to begin with.

Am I in love with him now? Yes, part of me at least, not like it used to be. The prospect of moving on frightens me and makes me feel like my body is turning inside out, the sadness of wanting to be loved and knowing there’s no one who does, especially him, is overwhelming, and while strangers and friends who read my words and hear my voice may claim that I am cared for I do not doubt this.

Where Am I Going To – Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita – 1979)

Self deception, it’s a nasty little game we all play with ourselves at some point in our lives; we imagine that we’re so very important to every single person we meet. The mere presence of “us” in a room means that the world is about to be changed, for good or ill has yet to be decided or conceived, but change will none the less occur.

I’m very guilty of this little paradigm I’ve made for myself, a roller coaster of grand delusions and self loathing.

I’ll start with believing that somehow I was put on this earth to change the course of the world in some way, a few years go by and my path is set, though muddled and murky most of the time, it’s one I can navigate.

Then the path leads into the woods, visible but turning every few feet behind the nearest tree, eventually that path starts to dwindle, it breaks and I have to search for where to pick it up, I always seem to find the trail again until at some point, in the heart of the woods as the orange glow of sunset casts its long shadows the path seems to disappear, I decide to wait there in this place until morning, but when it comes the path is gone, the path forward and the path behind, I’ve lost my way.

I wait in shadows and light, the warmth of day and the edge of night as the cold blankets the ground and the fear is a constant pounding in my chest. The ringing of silence in my ears as I sit with my knees to my chest as the tears and pain roll down my cheeks and soak into my clothes and skin. When the dawn comes I walk in circles, unsure of where I’m supposed to be anymore, who I am, what I was meant to do.

At some point, I give up, I sit and wait for the earth to consume me, the dry leaves underneath me prick and itch and I long for a quiet dark that never ends. It doesn’t come by itself unfortunately, and I’m too afraid of the pain stepping into the abyss will cause, and I’m too overwhelmed by the pain of being lost that I sit and wait for change.

The forest I’ve found myself living in is Los Angeles, and I pray to a nameless god that someone will find me here.

At some point the trees will start to move, a new path will be shown and I will start the journey out, hoping that I’ll never face that kind of a journey again, but always afraid I will, and always feeling the heart of the forest with me, calling me to the abyss, its true what they say.

It stares back.

Overture

In the dark there are whispers.

Little bits of noise as people mill about in their personal three foot by three foot cubes, preparing to be comfortable for the time it takes to watch a spectacle.

A distant pop is heard in the back of the house as a singular bright circle reveals the center of a red velvet curtain, the light shows everything, the tiny bits of dust that crowd the theatre, the little tears in the curtains that have been repaired with slightly different colored thread, the unraveling tassels sweeping the ground as the curtain moves with a wind of anticipation as the actors beyond take their places.

Then the music starts to play, slowly at first, as if finding its way down the beam of light.

Then suddenly, there it is, a story unfolding in rhythm and harmony, it previews how our world is about to change, subtly but deeply, as we wait for the curtain to rise.

That’s the anticipation I have when I sit in a theatre, that’s the rush of joy that comes over me when that first chord is struck, that’s the feeling of losing myself to a song that could send me soaring or rend my heart into a millions pieces, and the joy in knowing that each of those experiences is just as wondrous and amazing and will forever change me in small ways, in large ways, in ways I never anticipated.

That’s my passion, in case you haven’t figured it out. Though watching is only a small part for me, I want to be that storyteller, that person on the stage that conveys a truth to each of us.

Whether asking “Why Can’t a Woman Be More like a Man?” (My Fair Lady, 1964), reminding us that “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” (Avenue Q, 2003) or the importance of how to “Move On” (Sunday In The Park With George, 1983) the music of the theatre is often more about substance than style, though often the two cohabitate nicely.

I’ve always wanted to be a story teller in one form or fashion, so here’s my attempt at doing just that.

This is my second blog, for those keeping score, my first was an experiment in pity and victimization, though not much of that has changed, to be honest, I’m hoping that by focusing on higher ideals and desires that this blog will grow and mature as I do.

That isn’t to say I intend to be a self-righteous, egotistical, narcissistic, pretentious bitch, because believe me, that won’t be happening. I’d just like to see myself take an honest look at my life, and the world I live in through this medium, and share it with all of you.

Oh, that first blog? It was called “Bear In A Box”, I ended it a little over six months ago because of the long dark teatime of the soul* I had to go through.

Unfortunately I can’t promise I’ll be writing with a great deal of frequency here due to my new work schedule, but I hope to post at least once or twice a week, more would be good, but we’ll see.

It’s good to be back, now let’s see how I can Move On.

 

*For those keeping score, that’s a Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) reference/joke, not an error.