Re-Ignition.

Unstructured time isn’t the best for me, and yet I am feeling a bit panicky about my upcoming full-time employment in sales starting on Tuesday. What has been lovely about this time, besides the “brain space” I spoke of the other day is that I’ve gotten to take my long walks again, meet up with my folks again, play with my cat again.

I’ve enjoyed being unemployed, though I know it’s not sustainable.

On that note, though, I’ve been meeting up to "co-work" at cafes with a friend also looking for work and get some applicationing done. This has led to conversations, which have led to ideas, which are leading to action. Particularly around things that “light me up.”

Such as the long-lost “LocalArtists Productions” I started a few years ago, which hosted a successful group art show, but in which I put too much of my own money and ended up in a pickle. Since then, I’ve sort of let that idea drift. But talking to my new friend about what lights me, I said, “My favorite thing I’ve ever done? This group art show I put on.”

Even as I sat listening to my friend at her CD release party the other week, I looked around the space. I came home and looked up the rental costs for that space: this could be a great place to host another one.

I love bringing people together, people who “normally would not mix.” I’ve met so many types of artists on my path – poets, writers, painters, photographers, musicians, actors – that it only makes sense that I bring them together. “Oh, you make jewelry, my friend does still photography, maybe you can work together.” “You’re a painter, my friend just participated in an open studios, maybe you can talk to her about getting your work out there.”

There are too many opportunities to learn from and collaborate with each other. I don’t want us to miss any!

So, I may be starting a Kickstarter campaign soon. To pay off my back rent (accrued when I was in chemo) so that I can rent out the art studio space on the 4th floor of my apartment building. I said to my friend over our laptops, “Yeah, people would be willing to donate to a cancer survivor who wants to produce art again, wouldn’t they?”

They’re slightly different avenues I’m beginning to chase down again: One is the studio space I want to rent so that I can start working again. The other is the creation of a space for artists to get together, these events and gatherings that I love to host.

I feel putting grease behind one will help with the grease behind the other. And so, before I start my full-time work on Tuesday, my friend and I are going to brainstorm about the video, and maybe even get to making it.

Because time is ticking away and we all have art to make and people to meet. 

Round and Round She Goes!

Waking at 5 am to do work-trade at my workout studio doesn't make for a lyrical blog, so I figure I'll just give you a "state of the union" update on a few things I've been writing about here recently.

Yesterday, I had my first vocal rehearsal for The Addams Family. It's sooo low, this range, so I'll do the best I can! Which, I think will be alright! I also took my first voice lesson last week in over a year, and I really like the woman I met with. She's in SF, but I think, for now, at least through the play (Opening Sept 19), I'm not in a position to shop around at the moment.

I also wonder if I should begin auditioning again, too. As I once heard, "You're only as good as your next play"! Which is a great discouraging mantra!! But, perhaps instead, I'll look at audition lessons or acting lessons, too. It's not that I have the finances for that at the moment, since

I've begun acupuncture again, following all the medical upswing of the last few months with my liver, et al. But things have calmed down. Medically and emotionally. I had an ultrasound of my liver about a week or more ago. They found that, indeed, there were fatty or scarred areas on my liver which were likely causing the elevated liver enzymes that incited the doctors to panic in the first place. They can't tell from the ultrasound if it's fat or scarring, but in either case, the dr. said that we don't have to do anything except watch it. That there were just small spots on the image. Nothing seriously damaged at all. Or even moderately damaged. Thank god. The irony of a sober person developing cirrhosis was just too galling.

In the meantime, I've begun again with the acupuncturist I used to see (who's also in SF, so I try to stack my time there), and I think she's been influential in helping my system calm down and regulate. Granted, I see and have been seeing my chiropractor/naturopath, (who, using muscle testing, was able to diagnose liver scarring!) but I wanted some additional support, since things were "showing up" in my ovaries, and I know that the chemo may have knocked those ladies out of alignment. The acupuncturist, I began seeing for fertility/womanly issues about 7 or 8 years ago. She's known me for a good long while, though I haven't seen her in a few years. It's nice to have that long-term relationship, and she remembers things about my life and my progression that I'm surprised she does!

Next in Team Molly accrual, I met with a woman yesterday about a "fulcrum"related topic. I want to find a way to work less and earn more, so that I can actually not live paycheck-to-paycheck and dawn-to-dusk for the rest of my life. I believe it's possible, and have been reaching out to people to ask for their suggestions on this.

She, this friend of a friend, suggested something that I've had suggested twice before: Teach writing to kids.

...

Bu- But, B, B.... but I don't know how. But it'll be hard.

Mainly, I don't know how, and that means that I throw up all kinds of barriers to mask that vulnerability, like "it's hard," it's competitive, I don't have experience, etc etc etc.

These are not very true. That I don't know how to go about it is. But that's why I reach out for HELP! The same woman I met with yesterday said that she just paid... wait for it... $200 for a 4-hour class for her child.

I'm sorry, what?

In a class of 6.

She said that, in this area, you can charge at least $30 per kid per hour, and have a small class. She said that the teachers also offered help with personal organization for the kids, helping them clean out their backpack, organize their homework schedule, organize their life, because, if you haven't figured this out -- not all parents know how to model this for their kids.

Point is. This is the 3rd time in as many years that the suggestion has been made to me about doing supplemental education for kids. And I would love to do that. I have the passion, and the good intention (despite my practicality about the numbers), and the acumen with kids. I just do. And I don't want to be a "classroom teacher;" I just have watched and am continuing to watch too many of my friends work really hard for a diminished ROI.

Fulcrum, man.

Good for me for reaching out and being open to ideas. Now, the work will be to create a curriculum, a program. Eek.

And that's where the help will need to come in. But I know plenty of people who can, and the things that I don't know, I have the wherewithal to find help for that. She sent me the links to several programs in this area that offer similar services/classes that I could model my work after. It's exciting, nerve-inducing... and I hope I do it!!

Lastly, for fun, I'll tell you that my "Great Caffeine Reduction Experiment" is going well! I've moved from 4-5 cups of coffee a day to 1-2! Granted, I went to bed at 8, then 9 pm for about 2 weeks, and am still tired by 10pm! But I think a) that's more normal, and b) might pass. In any case, I think it also helps my body, and my energy, which I'll need. Not to mention my voice, since coffee is dehydrating.

So, things continue to move. ... And the Tarot card I pulled recently is the one about intense rest and reserving of energies. So, I cancelled one of my coffee dates this weekend (with a girlfriend, don't get excited!) to fulfill that need. But I think there's more rest to come.

As someone once said, "On most days, I meditate 30 minutes. On days that I'm very busy, I meditate an hour." (and I say this soooo metaphorically at the moment!!)

Open Sesame!

I’m still a little giddy from last night’s show with my band. Our debut and farewell show! (Though, there are rumors we may have a “reunion show” on Halloween.)

But a friend said something to me after the show that’s been sticking with me. She said that I am so much more open and confident now, that I’ve changed so much in the last year.

This same friend sat with me in ERs, cared for my cat while I was in chemo, and allowed me to bawl on her couch when things seemed so hard.

We’ve known each other only for maybe 4 years, but a lot has certainly happened since then, and she said she feels like she’s seen me blossom. And that, especially with everything that I’ve been through, how heartening it is to see that I’ve become and am becoming more open, and more engaged.

She referenced a quote she’d read in a book about women’s aging, that women come to a crossroads in their lives where they choose: become more open, or become more rigid, and therefore bitter. I told her, I don’t think that’s just women!!

But, what struck me about her initial comment was that it echoed something I’d thought to myself only a few days earlier.

I was in my car, and made some kind of comment aloud to myself, and laughed about it. And I had a flashback to when I was in junior or senior year of high school, and this one frenemy commented that I’d become much more relaxed and funny in the last little while.

Which may have had something to do with the fact that I started drinking and smoking pot… but… She was right. I wasn’t as exacting or perfectionist as I had been.

I sort of took that “easy-going” train off the rails a few years later... But I remember feeling then that she was right, that I felt less … not “square,” but serious, I suppose. (I was a very serious teen!, like most emo children.)

And as I sat in my car laughing to and at myself the other day, I had a similar self-awareness: I’ve become and am becoming more easy-going. (In some ways! In others, you have to untangle my brain with a tweezer and a magnifying glass!)

To have that same sentiment reflected back to me only days later by my friend was heartening, affirming, and... sentimental.

She said that as she watched me play, she found herself getting teary, thinking about everything I've gone through, and what I’ve made of it. And then she had to check herself, because you don’t cry at a rock show! 

The same understanding about rigidity or openness I heard on an audio CD about “Exceptional Patients” from Dr. Bernie Siegel. He said that after cancer, people tend to go one of two ways: become scared of everything, because death is just around the corner, or (finally) throw caution to the wind, because you’ve literally faced one of the worst things that can ever happen to you. You’ve stared death in the face: Will you now shrink at all risks, or will you say, Tah, this is cake?

Well, we all know, I don’t think it’s “cake” to say “Tah” to fear, but we all know that I’ve been doing it anyway. Because, really, there isn’t anything greater to lose. There isn’t any harder challenge. (Now, yes, there are other challenges that people face that I cannot imagine, child loss being one that’s top of mind lately.)

I find no glory in shutting down. I’ve lived most of my life in a state of “flight” and paralysis. I will never call it a gift, but I do recognize with appreciation and awe that, following visceral horror, I have become a woman more willing to be open, free, funny, and present than I’ve ever been. 

Doing Sh*t

On my way into my first audition last Saturday, a good friend texted me support, saying:
“You’re DOING SHIT!”

This is in stark (pfft, get it?) contrast to one of my most read blogs, Magical Accidental Orgasm (and I can tell from the stats list that many people find it by searching “Accidental Orgasm” on Google!). The blog was about my realization that I was waiting for someone to come along and prescribe for me my life, my bliss, my path without me doing much of anything. I was waiting for someone to (metaphorically!) “give me orgasms,” as I cribbed from The Vagina Monologues.

But today, two years later, I am no longer waiting. Today, I am doing shit.

This morning I woke up and practiced the bass line for the set my band is playing on Saturday. Tomorrow, I’m going to take my first voice lesson from someone who comes with great recommendations. And Sunday, I will start rehearsal for Addam’s Family: The Musical (which still just gets such the kick out of me!).

(Side-bar: Coincidentally, when I was in 4th or 5th grade, I dressed as Wednesday Addams for Halloween. So I guess it’s appropriate that 20 years later, I play her mother!)

Doing shit. Despite my thinking – always despite my thinking – I continue to put good things in my path. I honestly don’t remember how I found that audition call.

But, I do remember finally having coffee with a friend/acting mentor last Sunday to help me in my newbie, greenness. She is the one who suggested the song I sang for my auditions, and who recommended this voice teacher. She invited me to come over last Wednesday and practice my monologue in front of her.

And last Friday, I invited a woman to coffee who is making a go of the “life as singer” life to ask her how I could get out of my bubble of not being seen. She had many great suggestions, just to get me out and singing. Like choruses, and meet-ups, and this piano bar I didn’t know about that’s here in the East Bay.

I don’t want to do shit. Doing shit is scary!! But I also don’t want to wait for someone else to press play on my life, because that person is not coming. I don’t want to wait for the trumpet blast or starting gun or treasure map or even Ed McMahon, because they’re not coming.

This doesn’t mean that I move any quicker, but despite my fears, doubts, self-derision, scarcity mind, I continue to ask for help and put myself in the path of ... shit.

That’s how all these things have happened. I ran into a friend and jokingly said if you need a second bassist, and in fact, he was just trying to put back together this side project, but thought I wasn’t doing music anymore. Well, now! Yes, please! And so, here we are, about to play a show.

I like the responsibility and accountability it gives me to myself and to my dreams, not to mention to others. Having to show up with other people means that I can’t flake out. I have to wake up and practice, or I’ll be disappointed and disappointing. I have to make audition dates, or I’ll languish in “someday” and “wouldn’t it be nice.” I have to take voice lessons, show up at piano bars, take suggestions, or I will continue to say, “Not good enough, not really, not me.”

If wishes were horses… Apparently, I’d ride. 

My Brain Reads Like a Cafe Gratitude Menu...

I am pure, undiluted joy.

Honestly, you could culture my blood for Potions class.

There was an impromptu dance party.

I left an incoherent bubbling message on my mom’s voicemail, and called my brother, too. Who told me I’m awesome. And who I told back that he is, too.

For those who don’t follow my Facebook feed, I found out this morning that I got the role of Morticia in “Addams Family: The Musical.”

The one I don’t even know how I found the audition call for. The one I auditioned for this weekend to my own mediocre reviews. The one I was called back for, to my own mediocre reviews.

I’m sensing a trend here: What I think, and what reality tells me, may be two very different things.

And, here, for the better.

The astounding thing to me is this is the second lead role I’ve been offered in as many months. From, “you know your height gets in your way” to “please join us” … Wow.

There’s a quote that called me to sit for a moment in silence on my bed, breathing heavy from the fist pumping, Elaine-thumbs-out dance party:

Don’t forget to pause a minute and thank G-d for everything.

Thank you. Thank you, Universe, for conspiring for me. Thank you, Molly, for showing up even though you’re scared and doubtful. Thank you, FRIENDS, for receiving those phone calls and texts that ask you to send me love and support. Thank you, friends, for sending love and “likes” and hope.

I need you way more than you know.

And you always show up, which is marvelous – like, something to marvel at. Really.

The play will run mid-September to mid-October. This means that I will spend my October 7th birthday in performance.

I spent my 30th birthday with fondue and friends. I spent my 31st in a hospital bed, saying, "Next year: Brunch, huh?"

I celebrated 32, indeed, at brunch with a dear friend and her two kids whose laughter is part of my salvation.

And, god willing, I will spend 33 in pursuit of a dream I have let languish in a faded costume closet. The clothing of another woman in another life.

Life moves and shakes, it do.

And part of my work is to accept that these costumes, these roles, these friends, this love, this life … are for me, too.

Let’s throw open the doors, pull out these moth-eaten dreams, and hold them up to reality. They may be more solid than I’ve wanted to know.

Thank. You. 

How to Eat an Elephant.

Thank you, to whoever read my blog Perseverance yesterday, which encouraged me to read it, which I’m sure I haven’t done since I wrote it in November 2012. Particularly appropriate today is the following:

With each creative endeavor, as you know by now, I pull back at some point. Painting, acting, writing, singing. I will spend a few months active in pursuance of these interests, and then wane. I will talk myself back from it, in any number of ways, and move back into my mediocrity.

Yesterday, I showed up for two theater auditions. At the first, I sang a bit of a song (“Whatever Lola Wants,” from Damn Yankees) and a bit of a monologue (Sherry Johnson, from The Laramie Project).

It was the first time I’ve auditioned for a musical since high school; I only just heard the whole song on Monday; and I’d never practiced it with an accompanist before. Let’s just say, I could have done better!

(However, I’m “lucky” enough to have already had several auditions where I really bombed, where I said, “I’m so sorry can I start again…” three times! So I know what really bombing is! And I survived.)

At the second audition yesterday, for… The Addams Family, A Musical (HAHAH!!!), I was to prepare only a song, and I sang the same one, this time a little better. But.

There’s a moment in the song, where it hits a high note. It’s one that this whole week I’ve been nervous about hitting, not because I can’t, but because I can’t when I’m holding back. It’s not an unattainable note at all: it’s one I can’t reach when I’m nervous about it, scared I can’t hit it, and am psyching myself out, even as I come to that line.

Then I can’t hit that note. And that’s precisely what happened at yesterday's audition.

And the paragraph from my blog Perseverance is achingly on point. “I talk myself back from it.” That’s exactly what happened.

Now, granted, I’m pretty proud of how I handled everything yesterday, too.

After my first audition, I immediately called a member of Team Molly, and laughed really hard about how I bombed it. The silence of the auditors, the awkwardness, the sad case of the whole thing – I laughed. Because, really, what else can you do? It’s over, it’s done. I can get all butthurt and self-flagellating, or I can ask myself what I learned from the experience.

Which is what I did. I asked it aloud, so as not to give in to the brain gremlins on my drive home: What did I learn?

Well, I learned that I need to practice my songs with accompaniment. I learned that I need to know my songs much better and stronger than one week. And I learned that I really do need to take classes or lessons, if I’m serious about doing this. Which I am.

As with the “real” headshots I finally got done early this year, if I’m really serious about making a go of this, then I have to literally put my money (and energy) where my mouth is. I have to invest in myself.

It’s all well and good to show up partly prepared to these things, and see what kind of results I get. Sure. That’s totally one way to do this. But. That’s not at all what I want. I don’t want to feel I gave it a mediocre chance.

No matter what the results, I really do want to try my best, and this is not at all my best. This is lip service.

Nonetheless. As the first line of my morning pages said this morning, “I did really well because I showed up anyway!!”

I also supported myself throughout the day, instead of falling into despair or hopelessness, which would be really easy. And which would look like coming home to a pint of ice cream and 8 hours of Netflix.

Instead, I drove back to the Bay, went grocery shopping, and went to meet up with friends for an hour to hear their brain dump, and share a little of mine.

And then I went to the second audition.

After which, I created plans for myself so that I didn’t come home and isolate. I made plans with a friend to get out of both our comfort zones and go to this poetry open mic thing that happens monthly nearby. Neither of us were going to read, but just to go to check it out. Try something new. And not be alone in our heads.

It totally worked. I set up for myself stop-gaps for my racing thoughts, for my “not good enough” thoughts. I got into the day and out of myself. And what all of this does is allows me to show up again next time. Because who wants to show up again for something that you tell yourself you sucked at?

Instead, I showed up again, and I will endeavor to support myself with a steadfast vision by taking classes and making sure that I don’t have to feel so psyched out and unprepared next time.

And, just so’s you know. I got called back to the Addam’s Family audition, anyway. ;) Wish me luck!... No, forget luck. Wish me love. 

Card Reading

I had very specific plans for when I came home last night: watch Apollo 13, “take care” of myself, and go to bed by 10.

Only one of these happened.

For most of the day, I was out & about in lots of conversation with lots of people, expending lots of up, outgoing energy, and I wanted to counter it with some quietude. Before coming home for the evening, I was in a coffee shop, finishing up some extra work, and addressing cards for some friends.

I didn’t have the address for one, so I texted her for it, and told her that I must have 10 of her envelopes at home with her address on it; in fact, I had one of hers on my mantle.

She asked me which one, but I couldn’t recall exactly, and told her I’d send her a photo of it when I got home.

This, was the first domino toward the hijacking of my evening.

I did come home, take a photo and send it to her, a lovely decorated envelope with stickers and curly-cues and kind words, like all of hers. Next to it on my mantle (well, the top of a bookshelf, really) were a card from the director and one from the assistant director of the play I was in in April, with deliciously glowing, appreciative, complimentary, and supportive words. Such kindness and such a reflection of my being “seen” by them, in one of my aspiring avocations. The last one up there was a thank you card from my best friend on Long Island’s wedding, thanking me for being there and what a treat it was to have me there, literally in her bed, the night before the wedding, and helping/watching her get ready the next day; that it wouldn’t have been the same without me.

You can see why I keep these things.

But, it was also time to probably pack them away, do some cleaning. And I wanted to send more photos of my friend’s envelopes to her, since I knew she was in a space to need her own (literal) sparkle reflected back to her. 

And, down the rabbit hole we go, into the desk drawer where I keep cards, envelopes so I can remember return addresses (yes, I know there’s a better way), and art inspiration bits, like postcards from galleries or pages torn from magazines.

I’ve known this drawer needs attending to. If, god forbid, I were to croak, it would be hell for the person cleaning it out, and I know they’d just trash the lot, since, who keeps someone else’s old greeting cards.

But, also, it’s unusably full at the moment. Because in it, too, are all the cards I received when I was initially diagnosed with Leukemia in late September 2012, and also a host of them came in around the Hanukkah/Christmas season that year.

I’ve been avoiding having to carve through them. Because how can you discard those messages?

When I was sick, I lined all the cards up on the walls of my hospital room. I taped every single one up around me, to remind me of the network of support and love that I had. Each card, a message of love, faith, healing, fortitude, just for me. You couldn’t come into my hospital room without immediately knowing that I was loved. And how f’ing important was that.

This was not the room of a dying woman. This was not the room of a woman told she had a 40% chance of living through the next 5 years, even with treatment. This was not the room, either, of a woman who looked like a patient, despite the baldness, weightloss, and IV stuck into my arm and chest. I wore jeans and a sweater, like everyone else. I was a human, not a patient. I was a woman loved, not a pity case.

How rallyingly important was that to know, feel, and remember every single day.

But, when the trips to the hospital were finally over, and it was time to reacclimate to living in my apartment full-time, what to do with those cards?

I’m a keeper of things. Sentiments, magazine pages, interesting rocks I find on a mountain or beach. I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder, but I do have a bag of gently used tissue paper in my closet … but it’s folded neatly and in color blocks, so it’s okay, right?!

I also have a bag in my closet of the covers to theater booklets of plays I’ve been to; movie stubs; plane tickets; the brochure for a place I went camping or an attraction I toured.

The trouble is, I’m not a scrap-booker, so I just kinda carry this bag of non-chronologically ordered “crap” with me from home to home. But, that’s okay. One day, like the cards, I’ll go through them.

But, last night was for the card drawer.

It was slow-going. I had to take a deep breath before taking the rubber band from around the batch of 2012 holiday cards. I knew this was going to take a while and probably bring things up.

But I began. And with each card, I was reminded of why I’d kept them until now.

Here’s the one from my college classmate, now in LA, saying she’d enclosed a gift card to Trader Joes.

Here’s one from a former colleague saying she loves getting the bloggish updates I was posting then to my lotsahelpinghands website.

Here’s one handwritten from an Etsy company saying “a friend” was thinking of me and wanted me to stay warm. This, I remember, accompanied a package of 6 “chemo caps” ranging from thin to thick, the one I wore most, a fuzzy leopard print that kept me feeling fun and warm. I still don’t know who sent those, as there was no name. Thank you, whoever you are.

Last night, with each, if I knew the sender and their cell number, I took a photo of the card, and sent it as a text with a note of thanks to them. Each text, a reminder to us both of what friendship means, even for people who aren’t close.

It was nearly 11 when I finally decided to stop. I’ve barely made a dent into the drawer. But was able to cull a few things out, deciding that with some, having a photo of them now is enough.

At the closing of this activity, I found myself in soft tears of gratitude. So many people surrounded me with love. With funny cards and sentiments, with crazy wacked-out envelopes, with heartfelt messages of hope and healing. And only a handful of these folks were people I keep in regular touch with. So many people came out of the woodwork to support me.

I was told once during the time I was sick, that I had no idea how many people were rooting for me. I agreed. I knew I had no idea, and I knew that was astounding and one of the greatest showings of human generosity that I’ve witnessed.

I had priests, rabbis, Muslims, and Buddhists praying for me. My mom’s hairdresser and my Aunt’s student. I had a class of kindergarteners praying for me.

I remember, too, when I was sick, trying to figure out how I could send thank you cards to everyone who’d contacted me, but I could only handle a few.

In this retread through the cards, in sending them back out to their sender with my note of thanks, I hope I am closing that loop of love, and letting you all know:

Your prayers worked, and I love you back.  

Car Conversations

Because the question isn’t: “Would you rather be in a play or not be in a play?” anymore. Maybe that’s what it was a year ago. But my vision has changed, as visions are allowed to do. And more, it’s probably that I’ve allowed myself to see more of my vision, rather than it actually “changing.”

Now, the question is: “Would I rather be in a play, or be in a good play?”

It’s the same coin as the line of thinking that goes: Well, at least you have a job.

That, at its core, is very true, but it seems to me that when we’re living in integrity with our values in as many places in our lives as possible, we’re doing more good – for ourselves and for the world.

When people are living lives that are engaged, they inspire me. There are circumstances that can keep us from this expression of our true selves and skills, surely. There’s war famine racism classism sexism disease and all manner of ill fortune. I recognize the privilege it is that I’ve been able to crawl out of (and partially been born out of) the first tier of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” out of the pure and simple satisfaction of the needs for food, shelter, clothing, and income.

I am reminded of a phone conversation I had with my mom several years ago. I was in the car with a friend when my cell rang. I answered, we spoke a few minutes, and the call ended. What struck me later wasn’t the content of the call, but how I behaved during the call. My friend overheard every word and all the manner and mannerisms that came out during my conversation – and those behaviors would align perfectly with how I interact with my friend.

There was little to no difference between how I comported myself in relation to my mom and how I was in relation to my friend. That alignment of “personalities” was completely new to me. I was always someone different with friends, coworkers, family members, lovers. Although there are necessary adjustments you need to make in those various relationships, I was always way out of alignment – they all were completely disparate personalities.

My car conversation allowed me to see that I was “aligning the films of who I am,” as I later put it. It wasn’t about a shift from wearing different masks to wearing the same mask; it was about relieving myself of the masks at all – and being the same ol’ me no matter where, when, or who.

This feels completely parallel to my circumstances and predicaments these days: How to bring the same person, with the same boundaries, needs, and self-esteem, to work, to play, to relationship.

How to live in integrity, which, to me, means aligning the films of ourselves. Not participating in self-abandonment, and bringing every endeavor and relationship into the light, and questioning if it meets our standards of what we want for ourselves, and if we’re meeting those standards through our own action.

It’s all well and good to report and purport that I want to cease settling for less in many areas of my life; it’s another endeavor entirely to take actions that support that desire. Again, that’s integrity – being who you say you want to be.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I am leaving this play. When my friend last night told me that her “intuitive hit” was that I could find work that I love, I began to well up. It's not about permission to do the play or not do the play, even -- it's about giving myself permission to do that which I love. In every arena of my life right now, I’m endeavoring to find that which I love – which starts from acknowledging and listening to and giving enough credence to self-love to do that.

If I am purporting that I want to do what I love, but there are still these fissures of contrary action, I’m offering a divided message to “the Universe,” but mostly to myself. If I engage in that which doesn’t feed my soul and my joy-meter, I’m giving the message that it’s (still) okay to abandon my desires, and that my desires aren’t that important to me anyway.

It’s time for me to have a car conversation with the Universe, one in which I am myself – self-confident with a hint of doubt, a vehement believer in the need for joy and alignment, more than a tad bit wacky – no matter who’s on the other line. 

You Spin Me Right Roun’...

I’ve been looking up meditation retreats. There’s this one I’ve heard about for years that’s a 10-day silent meditation retreat – I remember a guy I knew once shared that his therapist advised him against going on a silent retreat! (He went anyway, and reported great tidings.)

But, one thing I always seem to forget until after I’ve gone on such a retreat or weekend away is that I can effect the same kind of stillness without going so far, and without paying so much.

I remember last year, I went north to Marin to participate in a half-day meditation retreat. The meditation itself was lovely; the grounds are nestled into the hillside near the ocean, and there’s an organic farm and garden you can walk through during the walking meditation part. But… the zen talk… eek.

This day's particular teacher stuck in my craw the whole time, so before the second “dharma talk,” I left. I felt good about having gone, being among the greenery and the eucalyptus. I even saw a chipmunk on my way back to the parking lot. But, I didn’t need to stay and “practice listening” to someone whose personality shone way larger than his teachings. It was way more about him, than his teachings.

As I left, I noted that I could have found the same or a similar degree of stillness, just by driving up into the nearby national park in Berkeley. I didn’t have to sit in a “zen-do” or listen to teachings – really, I just wanted to listen to the silence, and although I can do that in my own home, I prefer to go somewhere nature-y when I really want to recharge. 

I’m reminded of this as I look up retreats this morning: a day-long one at the same retreat center, the 10-day silent retreat place, even a hot-spring zen-center-meets-spa related to a nearby center.

But really, what do I want to achieve or gain or experience? Stillness.

I feel very harried at the moment, with a lot of irons in the fire around creative endeavors, work endeavors, and even friend endeavors.

I’ve been wanting to strengthen my relationships with friends, form new or stronger connections, and this weekend has been the perfect exercise in that – it’s been chock full of friend-related activities that have been truly wonderful. But, I’m tired.

Yesterday morning, spur-of-the-moment birthday plans were texted to me: “Join me in Marin for dinner and a hike under the full moon.”

Um, Yes, please!

None of the 6 dinner attendees knew anyone except the birthday boy, and we had a great time. The hike was fantastic. Epic, really. The view over the Bay, the fog rolling in, the lights below, the reflection of the “super moon” in the water. – That, my friends, was meditative.

But, it also wasn’t. Different personalities require different levels of reverence, and for some people, silence isn’t really an option. – I’d love to go back and experience it in the quiet. It was awe-inspiring.

And, I wasn’t home til after midnight … which if you didn’t know, is way past my bedtime. But, so worth it!

However, I begin to feel a draw inward. I’m an “X” in the “introvert/extrovert” Meyers-Briggs scale. Meaning, I am neither an “I: Introvert” nor an “E: Extrovert” – I fall so perfectly between the two, needing both in such equal amounts, that I am an “X: Right in the middle.”

So, with all of this external push (creative stuff, job stuff, friend stuff), Anty needs a recharge. (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids reference, fyi.)

But, it is important for me to remember that I don’t need to retreat from the whole world, put huge parameters around my life in order to do this. It’s as simple as committing 2 hours, getting in my car, driving 20 minutes, and crunching through the soft-fallen eucalyptus leaves until I get to a spot where I can sit – no incense required. 

Note: In this evening's performance, the role of Pride will be replaced by Truth.

She held up her fingers:

“One: Is it a theater company or director you really want to work with?” No, not really.

“Two: Are they paying you really well?” No, zilch.

“Three: Is it a play you are excited about and really want to do?” No, not at all. It’s awful.

“Then don’t do it,” she concluded.

But I auditioned for him three times.

“So, what? Say that something else came up and you’re really sorry. The thing is, that’s a huge commitment for somewhere you don’t want to be. You’d be wasting time that you could use honing your craft, going on other auditions, taking classes, and finding something you really want to do.”

But it’d be my first lead role.

“Yeah, in a play where the actors outnumber the audience for a play you don’t want to be in. That sucks; take it from me.”

* * *

This was the conversation I had last night with my friend who’s a semi-professional actress when I told her I was having doubts about the play in which I'm cast. She said these were the 3 golden questions her acting teacher said the actor had to answer for himself. The instructor, being at a higher level, said that for him, he has to answer Yes to all three of those questions. For my friend, mid-tier, she was told, No more crap jobs: She has to answer Yes to at least two of those questions.

And for me, beginner, I have to answer Yes to at least one of those questions.

Otherwise, what the hell am I doing with my time? What am I saying my time means to me?

I am very much associating all this with my job/career search. If a guy continues to get promoted up through the ranks at a company he doesn’t enjoy, doing work he hates, but is paid really well, is that enough? I can't say.

If we’re not getting paid well, doing work we love or working with people we enjoy… well, what are we doing?

If we can’t answer Yes to any of these questions in regards to career, why are we there? Why are we wasting any days of this short life?

I don’t yet know if I’m going to bow out of the play in which I’ve been cast. When I told her again that I auditioned for him 3 times — meaning, I feel that he's already put such time and effort into me and my performance I'd feel guilty dropping out — she replied, “Take care of yourself, not them.” … Oh… right.

Because the reality is that I will be in rehearsals for 3 hours nearly every day of the week for two months… for a really awful play. It’s really awful, folks. Not like, passable, manageable, I'm just being picky — It’s really awful. It’s terribly written. I’d walk out, if I were an audience member.

Because it wouldn’t have been worth my time.

No matter how great I am or am not in the play, my heart wouldn’t be in it – and if it’s not, then that’ll show up, too. I roll my eyes every time I read the script. I say aloud to my cat, “This is a really awful play,” each time I start to rehearse it.

I don’t know yet. It’s a hard judgment call, you know? I asked my friend, What about having to work your way up the ladder, and take shitty jobs at first? She pointed me back to those three questions. Where are my values?

Is my hesitation to drop out about my having a lead role, so I can feel pride? Pride over a notation on my resume? Pride over something that I’m not proud of? Is it about status? Is it about feeling this proves that I’m worthy; that I'm good?

How can you feel worthy about something you’re not proud of? That doesn’t compute.

I’m meeting with another actor friend of mine tomorrow to run lines for this play. I’m hoping to get insight in conversation with him – if it’s really as awful as I think it is.

But, I already know it is.

What my friend told me was that I should audition for everything, but don’t go to callbacks if it’s a terrible play!

I’m reminded, once again, of the dating/job interview corollary: It’s great to say Yes to the first date or interview. But after that, you’ve garnered enough information to know if you want to try it out again or not. I don’t have to show up a second time, if I’m really sure this is not a fit.

So, yes, it would be really great to say that I’m the Queen of the Amazons. It makes me feel worthy and proud and like I'm not making a huge mistake in going after this dream. But isn't the mistake not respecting what really want, and settling for (way) less, just so I can say I have a lead? Isn't the mistake I've been loathe to make in relationships settling for less than I want, just so I can say I have a partner? 

Wouldn’t I rather be somewhere where I’m excited and learning something, instead of just clocking time? 

10 minute blog:

(I know they say, Only speak if you can improve on the silence, but I felt I wanted to give you something this morning. Time is short due to doing my due diligence. And making up tongue twisters, apparently.)

Yesterday evening, I went to pluck one of the remaining lemons from the tree in the backyard of our building. In it, I found a robin’s nest with three sightless, flat and feathered chicks in it. Maws up and open.

I’ve been watching robins on the roof next door to me with worms in their mouths for a few days now, as I sit here at this kitchen table, writing, typing, breathing. But I never imagined there was life happening right there! The ingenuity of the nest-making was astounding, leaves harvested long ago, now time-reduced to a lattice outline.

It’s the noticing. The small moments when the chocolate vegan mousse cake you doubted, actually tastes like gilded decadence. When you decide to send a “hugs” text to your immediate family, just because it felt like a good idea this morning. When you go back through old pocket calendars, and read all the quotes and notes you’ve collected, including this rancorous gem from a rancorous man: “I’ve gotten to the point where patience is a waste of time.” – or this one, “I have a hard time taking my sanity temperature.”

For reasons hilarious and unknown to me, I seem to find myself in my second band with folks who are at least 10 years older than me. I love this. There’s little of the peacock chest puffing, and more of the genuine delight in participating in something fun, something that maybe we all wish we did when we were in high school, but didn’t. At least, I feel that way. And grateful that I get to do it now, when I’m less likely to vomit vodka tonics on myself.

Instead, I get to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon holding a bass in a basement with friends, and come home and feel inspired to take out my own guitar, and find out what I have to say anyway. 

The Facebooks.

Yesterday, I saw another of those articles posted by a friend on Facebook about the rose-colored facade that Facebook allows us to put out to the world. About how we only see photos of grand trips and lattes with foam hearts drawn in them and that uber cute one of you and your partner looking so darn happy.

This article and those I’ve seen like it tell one side of the truth, but not all of it.

I didn’t comment on my friend’s article, as his friends were aggro-commenting about Falsebook and how pissed it makes them that we don't see the "whole" picture of others' lives. I didn’t want the agida of the notifications if I put my thoughts there, so, I’ll “post” my comment here:

Facebook saves my life.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer in an ER and led right upstairs to start intensive chemo treatment, there was no packing of stuff, no notifying loved ones or having some hippie prayer circle. I called my mom, and then I called one of my best friends and asked her to do the major task of letting Facebook know, because that is – whatever feelings we all may have about modernity, technology, and disconnection – where my friends “are.”

Because she did that for me, my friends knew where to find me, and what to bring me, and how to get in touch with me.

A few weekends ago, an acquaintance – someone I’ve met only a few times, someone I could say “hi” to “in real life” but wouldn’t call “in real life,” aka a Facebook friend – put up a call to go to a local lake for a lazy Sunday afternoon. I had no plans that day, I’d never been to that lake, and I took a chance at spending time with someone I barely knew by letting her know, via the Facebooks, that I would love to go with her.

We did, and I made other new (Facebook) friends. I had a wonderful and, for me, an adventurous afternoon.

When I got frustrated with my job search recently, I threw my resume up on my “wall,” and two people have given me actual live leads for work, and two have contacted me to offer me help on my resume. I’ve looked at this thing so many times, I see only dot matrix anymore.

When I couldn’t stand that I don’t know if I’ll get to go camping this summer once rehearsals start, I let the Facebooks know I wanted to go, and now will be going into the wilderness with "real" friends, having a respite from this social network thing that brought this trip to fruition in the first place.

I get to see that my college roommates aren’t dead, what state they live in, how many kids they have. I get to see friends from my high school musical days launching and thriving in their artistic careers. I get to read the witticisms, intrigues, and slush that my friends post, and I get to feel that I know they’re safe.

I have learned about friends’ weddings, deaths, job changes, moves, births, divorces, successes, struggles, and banalities. And they get to learn about mine.

I won’t say Facebook is a benevolent entity, wanting us to all feel connected in a disconnect era. I won’t say that this is the “best” way of keeping in touch with people you’ve lost contact with, or moved a few zip codes from. But it does work.

I can also see it from the side of the aggro-commenters, lambasting the system for creating a culture of constant "less than."

I can admit that just the other day, I Facestalked a crush’s ex, and felt the creeping compare/despair that I see so many of those Facebook “expose” articles lament. But, what I did as I felt that gnaw of “not as pretty, funky, cool, yoga-y, artistic, traveled, fun, witty” creep up was not to skewer Facebook for allowing her to present an awesome and curated face to the world. What I did was LEAVE HER PAGE.

For the love, peoples. It’s certainly not that I don’t also fall prey to that depraved inclination and curiosity. I’ve Facestalked ex’s new girlfriends (or wives), and I’ve Facestalked crushes exes. I've kept tabs on who's "talking" to who and leaving little digital roses on one another's doorstep. But, what I’ve learned to do by now is to remember that a Facebook wall is NOT the whole story, but EVEN IF IT IS, it’s NOMB (none of my business).

Other people are allowed to have happy lives, curated, sappy, enviable. And the choice I get to make is whether I want to engage with envy, not with Facebook. 

Tossed.

On a shelf high in my closet sits a box. This morning, I took it down, dumped it over on my bed and picked through the pieces of paper I’d written and thrown in since it was given to me as a one-year sobriety present.

Someone mentioned recently the idea of dumping out their “God box” every once in a while, to see what “god” may have already taken care of, and to see what we’re still holding onto, even as it’s been "surrendered" to the box.

It’s sweet and astonishing to me, all the things that tortured me so hard, I found them listed on multiple post-its, torn pieces of paper, even a square of toilet paper.

The ones that I got to separate from “still actively seeking hope/help” included a lot of men’s/boy’s names that haven’t gotten a rise out of me for years. I had to wrack my memory at one of them, and then got to see the number of times others' names had been tossed in there in the hope for resolution and divine intervention, and indeed, they've become completely old news. Today, those got tossed to the resolved pile.

In that pile, I also tossed, Food issues and Smoking. Issues that I haven’t had to box with for years, so much so that I am surprised to remember them, and to notice they caused me such pain (well, smoking was a bitch to quit – and I never doubt that one will always lead to more).

The ones that remain in the box, that I am throwing back in there, are varied.

One reads:

      Jesse Morris will live.

      And he will find recovery.

      And he will be beautiful.

      Amen.

Jesse Morris did not live. But I believe him to still be beautiful.

I also have the memorial service booklet from Aaron Brown’s funeral following his heroin overdose.

I have the necklace my father gave me when I was sick with cancer. A photo of my mom holding my brother, age 2. A photo of the ex whose innocence we shared.

And the torn shreds of a fortune cookie I didn’t understand why I’d ripped and torn in there until I pieced it back together: “As long as your desires are not extravagant, they will be granted.” – I can easily see why I would bristle at such a fortune!

Finally, what will stay in the box, rethrown in, and recommitted to allowing them to be “taken care of,” are those issues which have remained “issues” to this very day.

The best illustration of these being an actual illustration:

Home, Love, Health, Security, Happiness.

(Or at least I think that’s happiness, and not Pirates.)

There are a bevy of papers with some amalgam of these on it. Some verbose pleas to a higher power, others simply a heart drawn on a post-it.

It is cleansing and reaffirming to dump and sort this box, this box that over the years I’ve begged over for things to change, hurled words in there like grenades, or exhausted, dropped them in tear-stained.

There are ones that I don’t know if “resolution” is possible, like those untimely deaths of beautiful people. And they will stay in the box.

There are ones where I still can’t see what resolution will look like at all, as with my dad, my career, and “my life,” as I wrote it again and again. They will stay there, too. 

But, luckily, there must be hope from a sorting such as this, because the pile of “resolved” issues is nearly half. Those torturous achings that caused me to toss names and circumstances in that have simply fallen out of mind, out of importance, into the fate and design of my past...

These ones that make me smile now for the girl who wrote them, and for the wisdom of time that solved them: They give me hope for the others. 

"Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face." Scott Pilgrim Vol 4

As those of you who follow (or haven’t yet hidden) my Facebook know by now, I’m actively looking for work. I have been, but some dam broke this week, and I’ve pulled out more of the stops – those stops tend to look like “fear of looking bad, desperate, needy.” However, SURPRISE! I feel those things, so I guess if I look that way, then I’m just looking honest, huh?

I’ve been reading back into some of Brene Brown’s work lately. I have her book The Gifts of Imperfection, and have been reading through the Amazon previews of her other two books, most especially, Daring Greatly, because it’s got her own biographical story at the beginning that includes the following exchange: 

      Therapist: What does it [vulnerability] feel like?

      Brene Brown: Like I'm coming out of my skin. Like I need to fix whatever's happening and make it better.

      Th: And if you can't?

      BB: Then I feel like punching someone in the face.

Nonetheless, what she goes on to discuss is the virulent necessity to be vulnerable in order to achieve anything of worth, mainly love, connection, and compassion.

People have commented to me often that what I write here is “so honest.” Which I guess is another way of saying I allow myself to be vulnerable here. Partly I do this because this is a protected forum. There are many layers to getting here: You have to be my Facebook friend (or somehow have the link), and then you have to click on it.

Well, two layers then!

So, this is a bit of a more private club than public. And I suppose that I feel brave enough to share this all with those of you who have leaped those two “massive” hurdles toward connection with me. If you’re this interested, or amused, then why shouldn’t you get to see some of me? Which this blog always is: some of me. – It’s honest, but it’s not my diary, nor my therapist. (Aren't you grateful!)

I suppose that mostly what I feel about sharing here, and why I feel it's "safe" vulnerability, is that you’ve probably felt this way, too. I have heard that feedback many times from people from wildly different arenas of my life and backgrounds and circumstances.

We all feel the same way at times. Have felt that way, or simply “get” what it feels like to do so.

In short, we are an empathetic and compassionate community just by my writing and your reading. We create connection, however zero’d and one’d it is, in this exchange of ideas.

I suppose I write all this today to say-- No, to remind myself that I have great capacity for courage, authenticity and vulnerability. I don’t mind telling you about the depths because you’ve been there, and can relate. I don’t mind sharing my journey into and out of the chaos of my brain, because, surprise, you all have brains, too!

In this time when things for me feel uncertain and uncharted, this blog is a constant and a place for me where I know that I can do and be well. Even when I’m vomiting on this page, and raging into and at it, I know you’re here, smiling, waiting for me to pull through. Or nodding and saying, Me too.

And. (Point):

If I have the balls to be as vulnerable and honest as I am here behind these hurdles, then there is a significantly greater chance that I can own my authenticity out in the "real" world.

Which I’m pretty sure is what all this mind-fucking job/meaning of life search is about, anyway. 

Band Aid.

You know, it was right around a year ago last June that I stood up with a group of 4 other people and played bass with a band in front of actual people in an actual venue. – I’d started playing in May.

This month, I’m being invited to do so again.

I’ve picked up my bass literally once in the last 6 months, since our final show on New Year’s Eve, or the final show I played with them before I left the band to pursue theater.

This switch, this focus of my energies in one creative direction (one that I’ve always wanted to pursue, but never let myself try or admit or commit to) has turned out pretty darn well in these last few months: I got real headshots, auditioned about a dozen times, performed in one play, one staged reading, and am preparing as the lead in a play at the end of the summer.

These are all great things.

But I miss the band.

I miss the immediate gratification of playing with people. I miss the noise, the movement, the sound, the collaboration. I miss the laughter.

Theater is performance; being a musician is a performance; but there’s a difference. The former is literally more staged. It’s not like I have acres of experience in either, and maybe I simply fell in with a great group of people for my first band – which I did. But whatever the formula is for happiness, I felt that when I played.

A friend once asked me what it was like to play with the band. What it felt like. And I took her question with me to band practice that week, and noticed how I felt as we fiddled and fixed and went over and over and moved into a rhythm, and went totally off the reservation with funny lyrics and made-up progressions: I was smiling. I was bouncing on the balls of my bare feet – the only way I could practice – and I noticed that I felt content, engaged, in the moment, fun, funny, “on.” That’s what “happy” felt like.

Next Sunday, I’ll get to practice with a new group of folks, a friend and his friend, to prepare for a potential show in July, before my theater rehearsal gets going. I’m feeling nervous and jittery – wanting to get the music charts NOW so I can practice, be perfect, be better – because if you haven’t followed along, I’ve only been playing a year, and not that consistently at that!

I want to build my calluses back up. I want to remember where C is on the fret board. I want to bounce on the carpet in my bare feet.

I love this theater stuff, … but I love the band better.

(P.S. I’m just reminded to reflect that it was only a little while ago that I wrote here that I wanted to “band” again … and here it is. Word.)

The Runaways

I sent out a mass text on Wednesday to several women I know who’d understand. I asked them to help me not quit my job that day; that for me quitting without a safety net is equivalent to drinking; that I was at the end of my rope.

I got several texts back, including from a woman I am only acquainted with but who I admire, and she offered that if I called her, we could pray together. Sure, what else have I got?

When I called, I imagined we’d just say some rote prayer that is common around, but instead, she launched into a several-minute long prayer personal to and about me. In it she said, to me and to the ether, that this job is just a recreation of my childhood trauma and neglect, and to help me see that and heal that. She said many other loving things, but this is the part that has been sending shock-waves through me the last few days.

I’ve “gotten” that my relationships in the world tend to be mirrors or recreations of older, historical relationships. It’s been clear that my acceptance and pursuit of jobs that make me want to cry with frustration over the hemorrhaging of my time is a pattern of low self-worth and despair.

However, there was and is a new level of understanding – an “aha” moment if you will (not gag) – as I listened to my friend’s prayer. How is my job a recreation of my home life growing up?

Well, at home, I was a runaway.

When I was little, I only did it twice. I got as far as our public library, with a small backpack filled with maybe an apple and a sweatshirt. But at 7 or 8 years old, I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t have a place to go, there was no where to go. And so I defeatedly walked back home, and slipped into my house, where no one noticed I’d been gone anyway, just like the time before.

In my home, my gifts were not encouraged or noticed; there was an unstable force that expected perfection, meekness, and to be obeyed; and finally, all of my most basic needs were met. I was fed, clothed, and housed -- anything else was bonus, not to be asked for and not to be expected.

(It wasn’t prison life, I know; but this is the interpretation and internalization of a small person with a brain that analyzes and makes judgment.)

So. How have my work environments been a reflection, a recreation of this initial home environment?

Perfectly. Perfectly parallel:

Basic needs met. Check.

Gifts not seen or utilized. Check.

Perfection and meekness expected. Check.

Unstable authoritarian. Check.

And finally,

Somewhere I run away from. Check. Check, the whole of my life, check.

I have held 6 jobs in the past 8 years.

Each year and a half or so, I become so frustrated with the confines of my environment and the yearnings of my soul, that I quit. I quit without a safety net. I quit with nowhere to go.

And so I do what I did when I was young: I go back home. I find another underearning, underbeing, dissatisfying, deadening, useless position that also meets my very basic needs and has a few coworkers to be my allies.

I keep this job until I end up crying in my car for an hour (See: this Tuesday). And then I quit again.

Rinse. Repeat.

So, today, I am attempting with every fucking fiber of my being not to quit. Not to start the cycle again without a plan – without someplace to go. Without someplace to go that is “right,” that is safe, that is not running from the frying pan into the fire.

For me, to quit a job without a safety net – meaning, another job or enough savings to carry me through to another job – is tantamount to drinking. And as a sober alcoholic, that’s a pretty serious parallel. It is deadly for me to do this again: I eventually begin to think about driving into oncoming traffic. It is insane for me to do this again and expect that in any way it would be different than before.

So, what is my solution?

I have tried every mode of visioning, job window-shopping, informational interviewing, praying, meditating, and begging known to me to try to “conjure” or land on or decide or realize or discover what the job, the career, for my life should be. And I have landed on nothing. I am absolutely blocked in this area of dreaming.

A therapist once told me that I don’t let myself dream.

And this is true. Why dream, when it’ll be taken away or I’ll fuck it up anyway, which amounts to the same thing?

I had a moment last night when I heard someone say that “we” are the kind of people who try to get away with doing the least work.

I thought about that. Why is that? Because I completely identify with that.

I leaned to my friend on the left, who identifies with that way of being, and asked, Well, what about workaholics?

I leaned to my friend on the right, who is a workaholic and would no more do the least amount of work necessary than eat sand, and asked her about it.

Later, in talking with her, I’ve come to see that although the routes are very opposite, the motivation and the fear is the same for both “underearners/under-be-ers” and for workaholics: Things are not going to work out; I'm not going to be okay.

For the set that does the minimum, the fear (for me at least) is that whatever it is is not going to work out anyway, so why try? Why give the world the satisfaction of seeing me put effort in, if it’s only going to turn to shit?

For the workaholic set, the fear is that unless I have my hand in everything, it’s not going to work out. I must make sure that I’m doing everything possible, or it will turn to shit.

In both these scenarios, the fear is that the result will not be favorable to us. On the one hand, why try to make it work – on the other hand, make it.

In both cases, there is a lack of faith in the positive outcome of things, or in an outcome that is unfavorable but doesn’t demoralize and crush us into smitherines. Because, for me, that’s the final stage of the fear – I will be so demoralized, I will be annihilated.

But aren't I there anyway?

So, again, what is the solution here?

It seems to me, that I needed a safe place to go when I was running away. And although I cannot conjure or envision for myself a job or career that I want, I do think that I can try to envision for myself a safe home.

Though, even in my home life now, I’ve recreated what it was like when I was a kid: My own small room that was safe, filled with things I’ve made and pretty things, a place I could hide, be myself, and a place where I was mostly alone.

What is a real safe place, not like this isolation? Where would I want to run away to?

I believe that as I try to answer this question, to envision what an ideal safe home looks like, I will begin to have movement on the job front. I will begin to create that environment I crave in the external world. And though that might not mean a lightning bolt in terms of a career choice, it may help to make whatever my next transition is one that I don’t have to run away from.