Perpetual Motion

"You'll be okay. You deal well with pain. You're at terms with it.Your worst is past but you put yourself in places that hurt you that I can't go."

Am I Strong Yet?

Once more, with feeling.

Yours, Faithfully

Dear World,

I need you to help me. I need you to show me how to show my best friend that his life is worth living. To show him that pain and depression and loneliness are not the only things in his life. That there are people that love him and care about him and want a full and happy life for him.

He believes that his pain is his and all his. He says he's learnt to be okay with disappointing people. He believes he's become good at being lonely. That he can cope.  But I think he's just scared. Scared of the unknown - as well all are. But not knowing who he'll be in the future scares him to retreat.

To be honest, I don't know what to do or what to say to him.

I never do.

I don't know whether I want to change his mind or I need him to change his mind. I'm just as scared or what the future may hold for me or for him. What if he gets better and then it's me he doesn't need?

When I left Victor I was so scared. I was scared of who I'd be without him. I was scared that if I left him, I'd lose my dreams too. That leaving him would take away my love for theatre. I fought for him for so long because I was so so deeply scared. And it wasn't until months, almost a year later, that I learnt what you wanted me to know: that as much as I tried to pretend to be happy and to please other people, there's no feeling that compares to truly being happy. I feel that now somedays, quietly, alone, walking home from school. My life isn't perfect but I can say without a doubt I know what it means to be truly happy with myself. And when I look back at myself, I know I kept the essential parts of me and I left those that hurt me behind. 

When you took Al from me - from us - I finally understood. Al knew what it meant to live life to the fullest - how to live without regret and how to love himself in order to love others and he had so much love to give. But it wasn't until I lost him that I realised how important it was for me to love myself.  I struggled so much through my first year of school, I was kind to people, I laughed but I couldn't connect with my classmates on that deeper level of friendship. I just didn't have the love to give. I was so focussed on myself that I couldn't see how much I was keeping everyone at arms length. Losing Al made me realise that you can't just be kind to people, you have to love people. That's when you truly see the goodness and the light in this world. People are strange and beautiful creatures and are worth loving and being loved. I don't want to live with regrets I want to love and love fully. But how do I show him that feeling is something worth having?

Now, now you've left me alone for a while. Shown me that I'm not quite ready to love someone else yet not when I have so many people in my life already who need that love. And I am okay with that because I don't feel lonely when they're around.

I am the least lonely when I'm talking to him.

And maybe that's selfish of me to want him to be where I am, to be able to laugh and smile and love people with me. I can't bear to see him in pain and maybe that's selfish of me too. But I believe that he can live without it. I need him to live without it. I know he's scared of who he'll be and what he'll want when he gets better but I don't see a way he can't be the same person I love without the pain. He is so inherently good and full of love to give. He can have so much joy and good feeling for people. So much excitement for his life ahead that I can't see a way where he doesn't come out successful and really truly happy.

I have this picture of us: old, world-worn, adventures done and stored away in photo albums and tall tales, sitting in rocking chairs, blankets over our rickety knees, tea in hand laughing at some stupid - probably over vigorous - thing we tried to do (have a race with our walkers possibly and fail miserably - he probably tripped on his own slippers). I want that. Selfish as it may be, I want my best friend around until I'm old and grey and it scares me more than anything that one day this thing will take him. That he might just give up. Or the pain becomes too much for his heart. Or the loneliness.

I honestly don't know what to do. I want him to get the help that I can't give him. I'm not quite yet whole either. I don't think I can bear to see him hurt this way.

Please World, show me what to do.


Yours
Faithfully

Something Borrowed, Something Blue.

It's a strange thing - being caught between two worlds. For me, in particular, it is something new and something old. (Though the experience itself is completely new and wholly unusual.)

Something Old.

Something Old is something familiar, something known, something easy. Still, here I am, looking at Something Old with new eyes and fresh smile. Something old has become something surprising, something warming, something easy.
I first met you three years ago in Africa and since then - I must admit, have thought rarely of you. Perhaps my life here is to blame - when your life: all the way over there is distant and unfamiliar. Still, I thought of you sometimes - looking heavenwards towards the stars and thinking of that night on that pier under the Milky Way where our potential energies swirled and sighed and then dissipated. (Because I was being a good person and I knew you understood.) But now things are different. Potential has become kinetic. Kinetic energy reveals distance and anticipation and missing. Kinetic energy demands attention.


Something New. 

Something New is not something new at all. Something New is something newer than old that aged but never really ended and is now, again, like twigs to kindling. Something New is exciting, flirty and a little bit secret.
Something New once told me that he understood that he had the 'emotional range of a teaspoon' (my words) and even that was 'being generous' (his words). Something New doesn't want to hurt me again but I think, at the same time, cannot seem to pull away.
To you: I want you to grow up and become the wonderful man I know you're capable of being. I know you can be self-aware and self-deprecating but I want you to use those as tools to grow - not just tools to charm. You're so young and the world has so much to offer you - I want you to embrace it, like I do, and see the beauty and joy in the world. You're too young to be sitting in dark rooms drinking Scotch and bemoaning the state of the world (Leave that to us old folks). I have so much faith in you but I also need you to be a man for me. To be stable, secure, confident without the self-deprecation.


It's the ultimate privilege and curse to have such choice placed at my feet. And yet such choice has spoilt me. I want Something New to have the steadiness and ease of Something Old and for Something Old to have the giddiness and banter of Something New. And I yet not know if I can have either.

And through this all, I look forward I maybe see that neither will be that Something I need. And I am at peace with that. To be given this is gift enough. It is just enough weight, rested gently above my heart, to remind me where my feet must touch the ground so that I can keep walking forward together or alone.


So, I ask the Universe, am I strong yet? 

Creation Initiation.

Creativity is like sex. You fumble your way through, you get lost in it, you fall in love. Both are passionate, rhythmic, pleasurable, and flowing. Both can bear fruit. And both can rack your soul with vulnerability, bliss, fear and awkwardness.

Things People Don't Tell You

People give you a lot of advice, a lot of sound advice when you start Drama School (And trust me, those words deserve capitalisation). They tell you you'll love every minute. They tell you you'll work harder than you've ever worked. They tell you you won't have a life (and you won't). They tell you you'll cry, laugh and feel more achieved that you ever have before. But what they don't tell you - what they forget  - not willingly, but because it is the course of life - is to tell you about the loneliness. They forget to tell you about the everyday-ness. The emptiness. The nothingness.

Most days, I work until I'm exhausted then go home and sleep. Sometimes I text my friends, who I miss more than everything. But it's not the same as seeing them. Don't get me wrong, school is incredible. I'm busy every day working in and towards an industry I love. The actors are beautiful, gorgeous and vibrant people. As an ASM, it's both humbling and frustrating being at the bottom of the totem pole. I've been told to sit still and shut up, been told not to speak unless spoken to and to be as furniture. I've never worked like this before. Even before - Before. Before when I was free-spirited, carefree (as much as I can muster up carefree), before when I would walk into a show last minute and save the day, before when I could speak in a rehearsal room. I know this is a different place, a different hierarchy, a different time and I know I must adapt but at the same time stay true to myself. And it is this tension that frustrates me day to day. Moreso though, is the inability of those around me to understand. Surprisingly it is not the ones who are in this boat with me who understand, but the ones who are far away, the ones who I miss, the ones who I rare see or speak to, the ones who appear at times when I need them but tell myself I don't.

Outside of school though, my family is the closest thing to a social life that I have. I love them dearly and for the first time in many years - perhaps ever - we have learnt how to have fun with each other and enjoy each others' companies. Yet somehow, there's always this gap they cannot fill.

I miss company. Moreover, I miss the company of friends. Relationships and sex - while they cross my mind - barely register on my priority lists now. They're not what I think of, not what I need right now. My friends on the other hand? I need them more than I need air. I miss the highs and the lows. I miss the excitement and every day being different.

You see, the thing they don't tell you about Drama School is that every day is the same.
And if you can survive that sameness, you can survive anything.
Embrace Boredom.

Wrote on a Bus, To You.