Update: Nothing Has Changed (And It Probably Never Will)

I'm tired of being a useless, lazy, stupid, 'entitled,' 'out of touch' failure.

 

I'm in a busy season in my life right now -- a job I enjoy, doing a show that's been on my bucket list since I first saw it in 2018, finally making some measurable progress toward what I've always wanted to do with my life, actually managing to keep up with the household tasks 95% of the time (thanks, meds).

However, despite trying for over three decades now, I have never figured out how to stretch time, or pause it, or beat it, or whatever it takes to pack more activities/responsibilities into every day. And as a result, I sometimes have to prioritise some things over other things. Last week, I prioritised cleaning the kitchen floor over putting away the (already washed) laundry. It's worth noting that every single household chore that I am responsible for got done except for putting away the clean laundry. What did I get for my efforts? An eight-hour lecture that has now bled over into a second ongoing, multi-hour period of silent treatment because I also dared have the audacity to pick the 'wrong' flavour of ice cream for myself.

Yeah. I'm just as confused about this as you are.

I've spent the last 24 hours remembering all those plans I made to disappear, to catapult myself past the wall of sleep, beyond the stars. I stand in our kitchen doing dishes, listing all the reasons I should live... I'm doing a show that I've wanted to do since before I met my husband, I want to go shopping with my best friend again, I don't want to make my parents and siblings have to lose me like that, I want to see all those goals I have set for my dance career get met, I want to see things get better because even after spending thirty years watching my life spiral deeper and deeper into hell with no sign of stopping I'm still dumb enough to believe that it'll get better someday.

I can't talk to anyone about this, I burned all those bridges multiple 'rough patches' ago. Even my best friend snapped at me last time I told her I wasn't doing well mentally, insinuating I was selfish for thinking I was the only person in her life having problems. After that, I realised if I wanted to have any kind of relationship at all with any human being ever, I would have to hunker down and get through depressive episodes entirely alone (my husband made it abundantly clear LONG ago that he was going to be personally offended every time I even alluded vaguely to being depressed). That had worked just fine until now.

Those are all great reasons to live, on paper. But they don't seem to connect with the bruised, bleeding, hacked up remains of my broken heart that's already mangled by third-degree burns. I know logically that those are good reasons, but they don't mean anything to me at this moment, even though I know they do (or at least they should).

Right now, all I can see and hear and feel and taste is how EVERY. SINGLE. TINY. INSIGNIFICANT decision I make is somehow the wrong one. It does not matter what it is, it is always wrong. Even if I ask for clarification a thousand times, everything I do is still somehow wrong. I'm so tired of always having to defend myself and always having to walk on eggshells and giving 275% of myself every single day of my life and still being reamed out for 'not even trying.'

It's just like freaking college all over again. I very nearly didn't survive that. I'm not sure I have the energy or desire left to survive this too. What's even the point? The longer this goes on, the more likely it seems that nothing ever will actually get better, and there's no big reward coming for hanging on to breathing like this.

So how much of my blood do I need to spill to make right the wrong I have done by existing?

Nachmo, Day 19 - Unreality

It's been tough.

 

Things has escalated with the other show. I've been accused of being out of touch with reality and was told I have done nothing for the show. The exact words were: 'calling you a choreographer is generous given how little you've done.' While it is true that I was quite sick for a long period of time and the assistant choreographer had to take on a lot of extra work as a result, I didn't do nothing. But here we are, I guess. Once again I've busted my butt on something I loved and wanted very badly only to be told I wasn't even trying. Why do I keep trying at all if nobody can tell anyway?

 

Of course, this bleeds into my solo choreography work. I'm reminded now why I consistently stop short at asking others to perform my pieces. I'm reminded that none of those glorious 16-dancer pieces I've choreographed in the past will ever see the light of day, because I'm too selfish and lazy and inflexible (that's another one I've heard before) and socially inept and broken to work with other people. I am apparently only capable of choreographing solos for myself.

I tried advocating for myself like my industry friends suggested, but they only doubled down. Inflexible. Lazy. Demanding. Selfish. Out of touch. You don't deserve to be called a choreographer.

I'm trying to use this feeling of rejection and inadequacy to inform the work I'm doing on Smaller, but it's hard to feel that the choreography for Smaller is any good. After all, my work isn't even good enough for community theatre. How can I make a whole show about memory loss with no studio space to bring it to life and (apparently) no business calling myself a choreographer in the first place?

Ten years ago this would have fueled my resolve. I would have sworn to prove myself.

But I've spent those ten years proving myself, and it hasn't made the smallest speck of difference.

Back to the show. I finished the last song of Act I last night. I'm now just over 26 minutes of completed choreography -- only four minutes away from my goal for the month, with 12 days to go. I think choreographing the full 54 minutes of the show in 31 days is still a tall order, but I might be able to get somewhat close.

 

As long as nobody else comes at me telling me what a failure and a fraud I am.

I really don't know how much longer I can -- or should -- keep trying.

Nachmo, Day 15 - Unwanted And Fraudulent

Today basically marks the halfway point of Nachmo. I started today with 15 minutes of choreography completed -- 50% of my January goal of 30 minutes, and 27% of the total show. So we are on pace. I was hoping to come out of January ahead, but I suppose there is still time to do that.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about how the show is shaping up. In my quest to not be too fancy, I feel like I'm being overly repetitive. I'm almost sure this show is going to bore the audiences to tears, if they don't walk out mid-show. Tap dance requires striking such a fine balance between repetition and novelty, and I don't think I'm experienced enough to know where that line is. It's something I'm having to think about a lot in this show... after all, it's about memory loss. How can you show memory loss unless you have a firm, clearly established motif? Only once it's established can I break it effectively. But the more I repeat it, the more my brain screams at me about how lazy and unoriginal I am.

It doesn't help that one of my theatre choreography projects is suffering from some serious issues with the cast -- specifically, they don't like my choreography (even though the production team loves it), and will stop at absolutely nothing to sabotage the choreography, turn the directors against me, and disrespect me and my hard work.

Part of the rift boils down to me not having access to a studio space. And I'm also really feeling the lack of a studio space in this personal Nachmo project. I am currently laid off. I absolutely cannot afford $40 an hour (plus GST) just to noodle around on some pet project of mine -- although such noodling would definitely make said pet project stronger. What kind of choreographer doesn't have a studio? It's like meeting a painter with no canvases. Of course you're not going to take them seriously. And people are not taking me seriously. This is also the second time in two years that I have had the dancer(s) dislike my work so passionately that they actively ruined it just to avoid doing the thing I choreographed. I don't mind collaboration, but collaboration MUST go both ways, and both parties MUST consent. I did not consent in either case.

This is tearing my already-fragile self-confidence to shreds. I took this gig to get experience, and the only experience I'm getting is disrespect and pain. And I have nowhere to put this pain, as my husband refuses to let me vent (because it's 'too negative'... and yes, of course I married someone whose top complaint about me is my pet peeve phrase, because why wouldn't I sabotage myself like that?), and it's 'improper' to air it publicly, especially since I'm starting out and I need to establish a good name for myself.

Sometimes it really feels as if it's a crime to expect common decency.

 

Update: It looks like I'm going to be officially wrapping up Day 15 with 18 minutes of choreography completed. Did all of Cimarron while watching the hockey game and I did the dishes to boot.

Of course, somebody will still find some excuse to call me lazy.

Staring Down The Barrel Of The Unemployment Gun

Sorry I haven't posted much lately.

 

It's so odd... I look around and I can see the colours and I am happy, happier than I've been since before I graduated college. I can see the life around me, and I can see a faint, distant glow of opportunity.

 

But at the same time... I feel more than ever before the word 'failure' whispering through my mind. I follow through on so few of my grandiose plans. I'm too shy to collaborate with anybody in a meaningful way. I can't hold down a job for a significant amount of time without either my mental health or physical health (or both) collapsing is some spectacular way. I can't even keep up with the housework, let alone be present for my husband... and forget having time to do anything that makes me happy (but doesn't make me money).

For years now, my singular goal and only glimmer of hope was the possibility of working enough to save enough money to move to a place with more theatre opportunities. (Everyone says 'just make your own opportunities where you are!' but none of them have to deal with a brain that straight-up refuses to do anything unless there are boatloads of accolades at every second of the proceedings.) As we move solidly into our thirties, it is becoming apparent that we may never escape this (quite literal) hole in the ground. Despite my best efforts and my extreme mental and physical sacrifices, we may still wind up dying here in this open grave in this forgotten corner of the province.

My current work contract ends on 13 September and it has been made very clear that they have no other positions available (and I've seen enough of the inner workings of the organization to know that this is true). I am less than a month away from losing our only household income. And yet I can't bear the thought of going to work anymore. I want to retire. I am barely into my thirties and I want to retire. I'm just so spent. I have so little left to give anybody anymore, and I think the people who read my résumé can feel that somehow through the pages of dance and fast food and not much else.

I just want to lay down and close my eyes and never open them again. I don't have the mental or physical strength to gut my way through yet another 3-to-5-year job hunt. There are no more reserves. There are no more second winds. There is no more pushing through. I want to, but I can't. There quite literally is nothing left.

But I can't, because if I don't have an income, we will end up on the street.

The Drafts Of Yester-Decade

Recently I went way back into my blog drafts folder... and I mean way back. I often scroll back about 2-3 years, but this time I went all the way back to the very beginning, to the first couple of posts I wrote back in 2010 and never published... probably for the first time since I wrote them.

There was a lot of little stories of my life written there that I had forgotten about. And in a way those made me sad. I knew I was a brighter, happier person then, but reading these posts has put into sharp contrast just how much Brittney's and my cousin's deaths destroyed who I used to be... and who I wanted to be.

I still miss that person.

The other day I contacted an old college friend who I haven't spoken to since 2020, when I was banned by my in-laws from anything I used to do or to be. I've been getting tired of being locked in the prison of my own mind, and I'm starting to rebel. I've volunteered for a local theatre. I'm starting to listen to music again. I'm starting to text people back. I'm starting to read the Bible and watch church services again.

I want my life back.

That may never happen. In September, I sustained a back injury at work, and seven months later, it is causing more issues than it did the week it first happened.

I have not yet brought up the subject of future dance endeavours with my physiotherapist. They know I have a history of dance, but they haven't asked for details, and I haven't mentioned it. I haven't needed to -- there are still no dance opportunities here anyway.

I am a different person now than I was fourteen years ago, but I'm not convinced it's a good thing. Perhaps I made some decisions that looked stupid -- but honestly, I made those decisions from a place of deep trust, and I never felt more free and 'whole' than I did back when I was living out on a limb every day of my life.

The freedom and joy in those old posts are palpable, even after sitting on a dusty server somewhere for well over a decade. I have not felt that since before my uncle left my aunt in January 2015. I was 21 years old.

All these tragedies I never asked for ate up all the best years of my life. My body was a well-oiled machine, and my mind was sharp and quick. But it was all wasted as I spent those years drowning in an endless ocean of grief. Now the grief has dulled, but both my body and my mind are no longer what they were. I wasted all of that potential, all those years... on something that wasn't even my fault and was completely beyond my control. It's so unfair. It's so unfair.

I'll never be able to get those years back.

Tickling The Ivories

I recently bought myself a piano keyboard with some Christmas money.

I hadn't touched a piano in years -- not since I left Saskatchewan in 2019. I had taken piano lessons in both the first and last years of my degree, but since I had come into the program essentially without an instrument and since the program director was an opera singer, I had by default become a voice major. The worst and most detested voice major in the program, mind you, but a voice major nonetheless.

What I had really wanted to learn was piano. But I didn't advocate for myself -- I felt embarrassed that I couldn't even read music and here I wanted to be in the music program. At least in voice you could fake it without reading music. You should be better than this was the thought that constantly dogged everything I did -- dance, voice, piano, anything.

I took eight years' worth of music theory in the space of two. I learned enough piano to play my own melody lines in practice and to sight read new choir pieces. The rare time I attempted to play something on the piano in its own right, I noticed the peace that settled over my soul as I watched my fingers work out a recognisable -- and not unpleasant -- tune. But then the voices of everybody I knew would come back in my brain, shrieking and strident: you should be better than this.

When I left Saskatchewan in 2019, I was so tired of hearing that voice that I abandoned singing entirely. I celebrated my final day in the practice room, before my last show there. I would never have to set foot in those rooms again. I would never have anybody give me a failing grade on the voice God gave me ever again.

My piano skills died with it. Due to the absolutely insane schedule that school demands performance (read: voice) majors keep, the only time I really got to play piano was when I was learning a new song for my voice lessons. With my voice lessons firmly and definitely behind me, I also no longer played piano.

For a while, I forgot that I had ever known how to play. The pandemic came and took all the theatre opportunities away, so I lost my ability to sight-read music as well. I remembered the hellish hours of voice training during college, but the fleeting seconds of piano were lost.

This past Christmas, my husband offered to buy me a piano keyboard and showed me the one he had in mind. It looked great, but it was more money than I knew he could afford to spend on me and talked him out of it. But then a relative of his gave us both a not-insubstantial amount of money. Despite my pleas to put mine in our savings account for a house, my husband insisted his relative would have wanted us to spend it on something fun.

I have never in my life possessed a sum of money more than $20 with no option to spend it on the practical things of life. I sat on that money for literal months as I tried to think of something 'fun' to buy. I thought of a bass guitar -- something I had wanted to learn for years. But reading reviews on beginner basses overwhelmed me, and I wondered if I was really going to have the energy to learn a new instrument with my few remaining scraps of energy at the end of each day.

But then I remembered the piano keyboard my husband had shown me months earlier. I had some piano experience. I wouldn't be learning a whole new instrument from scratch. And I knew my husband would approve since it had been his idea in the first place.

So I ordered it, it arrived, and my mother and sister (an advanced pianist) sent me some sheet music my sister was no longer using. I found a copy of Michael W. Smith's Great Is The Lord is the pages they sent, and while that's not my favourite worship song or even my favourite MWS song, the memories of listening to it on my dad's vinyl copy drove me to pick that one.

The first week was mostly a rude awakening of just how much music theory I had forgotten. I spent days just trying to remember how key signatures worked (my theory books were all at my parents' house), and it took about as long to remember the notes of the bass clef (the treble clef was more hardwired into my soprano brain, but even that had taken a hit). But it began to come back to me, and I even began to develop some smoothness, then to play both hands together through some parts of the song.

And every time I sat down at that keyboard to run through the song, I felt a brush of... peace? maybe even joy? tickle my shoulders. It was so soft that I didn't even notice it at first. But after a few weeks, I realised it was the same feeling I get when I dance. That same peace, that calm, that assurance that all is right with the world, if only for a moment. And I began to remember having that same feeling the few times I played piano in its own right at college. Practicing voice had only ever been a source of stress and fear and frustration. Playing piano had been so lovely and calming that I had avoided it because it was 'wasting my time...' if I wasn't in a state of maximum stress while doing it, it probably was because I was using it to procrastinate on doing something useful... right?

But now, nobody is grading me on my voice or my piano skills, so I'm continuing to practice piano and relish the peace it brings me. I still don't have a space to dance in (and at the moment, I also do not have a healthy back to dance with), but at least I have this, this one modicum of peace in a world that feels increasingly and heavily against me. I'm only sad that it took me this long to realise that piano is what I should have been pursuing all along.

Brain Dump/Goal Update

Really lacking motivation, as usual. I keep trying to power through it, but I'm running out of reasons why I should be powering through. I'm trying to tell myself it's because I've been sick all month (had COVID immediately after Christmas, and now have long COVID symptoms so yay for that), but I know that I wouldn't be any more motivated if I wasn't sick. How on earth did I ever manage to focus long enough to get a Bachelor's degree?

So I thought I'd write a blog post, since nothing else is working. Maybe blogging about my problems will help me find the solution.

There's a scriptwriting contest nearby that closes on the 30th, and I'm trying to write something for it, if only to get my name out there (but hey, getting it produced would be a nice bonus). I came up with a theme, but it's supposed to be a one-act play. I've never even watched a one-act play in all my years of theatre, let alone written one. When you Google what a one-act play consists of, you get WILDLY different answers. Like literal opposite-ends-of-the-spectrum answers. So I just picked one and am hoping it's right. Self-doubt is not a great companion to have in a situation like this. I have no real pretensions of winning but -- man, wouldn't it be great if I did? It would look amazing in my portfolio.

I wanted to be writing articles and getting to a point where I would write an article draft one day and then editing older ones the next and repeat. I haven't written (or edited) a single thing in at least two weeks, despite really only working half-days due to ALL of the health issues. I just have absolutely no motivation and absolutely no ideas. How do I think I'm going to do this full-time when this happens all the time? It's so frustrating. I'm the only person in this household able-bodied enough to work (or at least I was before my back injury in September), and that's slipping away from me fast. I have always wanted to be self-employed and here's my chance and I'm just... doing nothing. I'm so frustrated with myself. Everyone else can do this. Why can't I? I know, I know, it's the ADHD. But that makes it worse. This only reinforces the idea that I am a dysfunctional human being and I'm too broken to bother being fixed. It's hard to want to try when you just feel so broken and forgotten.

I've submitted two pieces -- one to a magazine, and one to a flash fiction publication -- and haven't heard anything back. The magazine said it could be 9-12 months (yes, months), and the flash fiction should be announced in the next week or two. I have a half-decent draft I wanted to send to an online culture publisher, but I can't seem to pull the trigger on it. I'm so terrified they'll think my idea is stupid.

I have a vague idea of what needs to happen in Kyrie to fix the very-bad pacing issues in Act I, but I haven't figured out how to actually implement that... it's just a vague idea in my head at this point, but to actually write it into scenes? Pffft. No clue. No idea what those scenes would look like.

I've done some fine art -- mostly pencil crayon, actually, and I've almost finished a piece in marker. Those are fun and they've turned out decent. My main problem here is lack of ideas. I usually think in words (writer) and feelings (dancer), not easily-drawable images. The images I do think of are WAY above my skill level and I know it would just be an exercise in frustration to even try.

I haven't even touched dance. Not one dance thing. I want to make a trailer for Sottovoce so I can submit it to MDFF, but I just... can't, somehow. I want to type up the choreography so far for my (hopefully) next tap dance film to see where I'm at and what's left to choreograph, but again, I just... can't. I'm afraid I'll struggle with memorizing as much as I did with Inside Of You -- it turned out all right, but I've GOT to stop going into filming knowing literally none of the choreography. It just makes shooting take a thousand times longer and it makes editing so much harder than it needs to be. I dread starting memorization. I really do. I think me not typing up this choreography is me trying to avoid starting memorization -- which, of course, will make the problem even worse because then I'll have less time to memorise. I know this. I've always known this. But I can't seem to just DO it.

The one goal I've actually made a good start on is the reading. I've finished one book and read another cover-to-cover last night (it was a beta read, actually, and it was SO good. Will probably be talking about that book here a good bit when it's released -- the author accidentally hit all my special interests and it was really well-crafted).

Rehearsals for my show are going well so far. The cast seem friendly, but it's hard for this broken human to initiate conversations with them. They're a good group, and there's always laughter at rehearsal. It's also really nice to go on long drives again (it's a forty-minute drive one way -- about what I used to do four days a week for dance before I got married).

I still don't have any motivation or ideas (well, maybe one, but it's a baby idea and it needs to incubate a little bit), but it did feel nice to actually type for a while and have my thoughts organized like this.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.

Tired

I'm tired of being a failure.

I'm tired of being broken.

I'm tired of everything I do being wrong.

I'm tired of being yelled at.

I'm tired of being told I don't know how to do anything.

I'm tired of waking up in the morning.

I'm tired of the same old, same old.

I'm tired of having nothing left to give.

I'm tired of looking into my future and seeing only pain.

I'm tired of trying solutions and having them fail -- often spectacularly.

I'm tired of trying to find purpose and meaning.

I'm tired of trying to find a reason to fight for anything.

I'm tired of losing those who are supposed to love me.

I'm tired of being somehow simultaneously 'too much' and 'too little.'

I'm tired of crying.

I'm tired of trying.

I'm tired FROM trying.

I'm tired of being broken.

I'm tired of being the black sheep

I'm tired of having nowhere to put this pain.

I'm tired of scrimping and scraping for every penny.

I'm tired of fighting.

I'm tired of having my 'friends' abandon me.

I'm tired of not being able to afford to get the help I need.

I'm tired of having to be strong all the time.

I'm tired of living.

A Search for Fulfilling Work

I'm still job-hunting and every day at my current job kills my soul a little bit more. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. I'm in limbo as far as my training for the next 'level' in the company, so to speak, and even though it comes with a slight (very slight) pay raise, I feel no excitement for it. I'm really just doing it for the money, and I need more than just money to feel that my job -- that my time -- is worth it. I'm not feeling fulfilled at all, and the rush I used to get in making X amount of drinks or burgers in a certain timeframe just isn't doing it for me anymore. The thrill of accomplishment is wearing off, especially now that I'm being more consistent with finishing dance films and I have Kyrie fully rewritten. Those are huge, complex, creative, challenging projects, and burgers are just... burgers.

However, I currently live in a tiny town with no real, fulfilling jobs. I've been applying for remote online 'virtual assistant' and copywriting jobs, but so far I'm striking out.

I've been looking into being a freelance writer more seriously. Until recently, I've been so overwhelmed by even the idea of looking it up that I haven't even Googled it. But I'm started to do some research, and... it actually looks pretty fun. Even some of the lower-end pay rates I've seen would pay many times more per week than my current job. It would definitely be enough to cut my hours at least, if I can get some consistent work. I'm testing out how consistently I can generate ideas and write articles through the month of December, and in the early part of next year my plan is to start actually pitching.

Freelance writing would be the ultimate dream... to wake up at a decent hour of the morning, sit in front of my computer and type for a few hours while listening to fun music, then spend the rest of the day spending time with my husband or working on dance projects. If I'm able to land a dance teaching gig, so much the better -- that's more consistent, something I actually am passionate about, and doesn't require me to get up at 6am and walk to work in the freezing cold and stand on an awful concrete floor all day with managers treating me like I don't know how to do my job and then go to bed at some boring early hour just to do it all over again. And again. And again.

It's not even like I would slave over the computer all day. I can totally put out an 800-1k word article in a half hour and edit it in a day or so. Fifteen years of NaNoWriMo and a five-year college degree have trained me well on that point. I would love my work a lot more, I would be far less tired, and maybe our marriage would improve with the additional time and energy I would have for my husband because it's not being drained out of me at a soulless job that demands so much but has nothing to offer.

Time is precious. I don't want to spend my precious time making burgers that people eat in ten minutes and forget about. I want to spend as much of my time feeling fulfilled as I possibly can. For me, that means writing about things -- helping readers make sense of the world. That means dancing -- the only way I have found any modicum of true peace. That means making crochet projects and paintings -- things that make our world and the worlds of my loved ones just a little bit brighter. Thirty-two hours a week at a job where you're just a cog in a machine is too much time out of such a short life. I could be doing so much with that time and I'm just standing there asking people what they want in their coffee. There's got to be more to life than that. I know there is... I've seen it.

The arts impact people. People carry art with them for the rest of their lives. I want to be a part of that.

NaNoWriMo, Day 18

I am struggling HARD this year.

I'm exactly at par right now. I'm getting hundreds -- not thousands -- of words done on work days, and have written maybe five words today -- my day off. I had hoped to write 3k today, but I just don't have the mental energy.

I keep going back to LinkedIn, looking for jobs, looking for connections, looking for anything that will get me out of this hellhole job that I'm currently trapped in. This is quite literally eating my life. My marriage is failing and I am almost convinced it's work stress that's making me an ineffective marriage partner.

On top of that, somebody tipped off the NaNoWriMo Board about the moderation drama that's been going on all year THIS month, of all months, and got all the forums shut down for all users during the LITERAL ANNUAL EVENT THAT THE FORUMS ARE THERE FOR. I've never been a huge forum presence, but I have a couple threads that I'm active in and not having the forums there for support and encouragement has almost killed my writerly will to live. I understand why they did it, I do. Moderation is, apparently, a dumpster fire (I have not witnessed any of this, but I've been hearing others complain about it all year) so in order to 'suspend' mod activities and sort out the allegations, they had to also suspend the forums lest it become the Wild West. But in an already-difficult time in my life where I am feeling extremely unsupported and unheard both personally and professionally, this is the straw that has broken this camel's back. Even if everything is sorted out, I really don't know if I will do NaNoWriMo next year. I understand the Board is doing their best and I do appreciate their efforts to sort it out and make it right as best they can but I'm just done having all my support systems taken away from me and this has left a really bad taste in my mouth. NaNoWriMo made me a writer and for that I will always be grateful. I have nothing bad to say about the event. But I don't know if I have the strength to put myself through this again, and that breaks my heart. I loved this place. But I feel it didn't love us back.

I'm so tired. I've had a headache for *checks notes* eighteen days now.

Even my story feels dead. I guess it matches my soul right now. I loved the concept of it, but I'm struggling with execution, as I did with last year's story. Both years I've had amazing ideas that I really loved, but was completely bored of the story as I wrote it. I don't remember feeling this before with any of the previous eighteen NaNo-related works I've written.

Is it a sign that I need to pause writing rough drafts and focus on editing these into actual published works? Maybe. I have easily five drafts that are very workable candidates for eventual publication. But I do want to finish this one. Only 20k left to go. It's still very doable, but only if work and marriage stress don't drown me first.

I hate that this is the NaNoWriMo experience I'm having. Even before the forum shutdown, I was struggling mightily. I'm so tired. I'm so done. Even with an outline, I can't seem to get from point A to point B. I honestly wonder if I would have been better off not making an outline at all. It's not stifling me, per se... I think the outline itself is just not interesting enough to me at the moment, especially with everything else draining me of hope. Writing used to be a welcome escape for me, but it's not working anymore. And that hurts a lot.

Dance Film...? (An Update And Small Vent)

At the beginning of the year, I swore to myself that I would ACTUALLY make two dance films this year.

I knocked out one (Sottovoce) almost immediately, and allowed myself to do a smaller, simpler one for the second. I finally picked one, and have been trying to memorise the thing since July.

It's still not memorised.

This is the only weekend I can film it, as this will be the last weekend of the year that I have access to this location and I REALLY don't want to film it indoors (in the same studio as Sottovoce to boot). I want to infuse colour and life into this dead town and filming outside in the fall leaves is the best way I can see to do that.

I also can't break a promise to myself again.

The only promise to myself I've kept this year so far is to finish the Kyrie rewrite. Don't get me wrong, that was a MASSIVE accomplishment, but I don't want the rest of this year to be a total washout.

I've been doing all the right things. I've been running this piece every spare second I have for three months. I didn't have access to a tap floor until tonight so I've been drilling the choreography into my head, knowing that only goes so far but wanting to give myself the best possible advantage.

I wanted to film this thing tomorrow. But it SUCKS.

The choreography is (mostly) great. But my memory -- apparently now my achilles' heel -- is doing its best to sabotage me at every. single. turn (literally and figuratively).

I don't want to fail yet again. I've broken this promise to myself so many times. I don't want to fail again. I don't want to fail again. But it looks like I may have no other option.

Mental Health Update, Year Twenty

The depression is hitting hard lately. I'm so tired and I had a thousand thoughts in my head before I sat down in front of this page and now they're all gone.

This pain is turning me into an animal. It's hard to even walk upright now, the physical pain and the palpable weight in my heart pull my chest to the earth like an anvil hanging off my sternum. I've cried at work three times in the past two days. Nobody noticed. I know my work has become positively shoddy. I feel like if anybody saw the sniveling, growling, barely-human creature I am when I'm alone, I would be sent to a mental institution immediately. I can barely string together a sentence even in front of people. I feel like the persona I put on in front of people is more and more incongruous with who I really am now. And who I really am is this bundle of pain so deep and so intense that it threatens to physically rip my heart out of my chest -- and I would welcome the day.

I'm tired of walking on eggshells. I'm tired of hearing the voices of the people who were supposed to love me in my head, calling me 'stupid.' Maybe I really am stupid, but that doesn't make the word hurt any less. I'm tired of looking in the mirror and not even recognising the person I see. I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of steeling myself for manipulation at work and I'm tired of steeling myself for manipulation at home. I'm tired of having to censor every thought. I'm tired of having to be on high alert to do damage control constantly.

I want to lay down and close my eyes and never wake up again.

They tell you things will get better. They tell you tomorrow's a new day. They tell you ten years down the road, you'll be glad you didn't kill yourself.

It's been twenty years.

Twenty.

Years.

I regret staying in the chair in 2009. I regret walking back to my dorm in 2017. I regret putting the knife back in 2020. I regret putting the knife back again last year.

I regret every single time I didn't take that chance to get out. Because it's been twenty years since depression first entered my head and things have NOT gotten better. I think twenty years is a more than reasonable amount of time to wait it out.

So what's my reason now, all-knowing ones? I've waited. The better life, the hope and fulfillment and peace that all of you PROMISED me would come has not. So why should I wait longer? It hasn't shown up in twenty years, it's not likely to show up now.

And I'm so worn out and I'm so tired of waiting for a better day that will never come.

Follow Where?

I'm starting to get restless.

I'm almost three years deep into a 'normal' job. And while I'm good at it and enjoy the actual work... I'm tired. It's that bone-deep exhaustion that I've learned should not be ignored. I only work one day this week because it's tech week for the show I'm in (we open Friday!), and I'm so excited to just... not wake up at 6am. I would turn in my notice this week if I could -- despite the fact that they just announced all employees would be making one extra dollar per hour during the summer.

Maybe it's because I'm in a show -- a rare occasion here in the desert. I know I'm not star material and maybe I never will be, but I am now more happy being a one-line character than I would have been five years ago. I keep thinking of Jesus' words, "Follow Me."

I want to. But where is He, that I might follow? And what must I leave behind -- my job that's paying our bills or the dream I've been clinging to for nearly three decades? Of course my bias/special interests say to leave my job and follow the dream, but is it too soon? I want to follow God's timing, but I don't know what that is. How can I follow a guide that I can't see or hear? He says things like 'love your enemies,' and 'bear witness to the kingdom of God' and 'repent,' but that doesn't tell me whether or not I should be leaving my job or if I should be pursuing this dream of mine.

I want to be self-employed somehow. I miss being able to set my own hours. Even at college, I had control over when I did things as long as I attended classes. Classes were only an hour and fifteen mintues. They were just a part of my day, not the whole entire day like a day job is.

My husband is self-employed now (though it's commission, and he's not 'big' enough yet to maintain a reliably sustaining paycheque), and I'm really kind of jealous. Kyrie is so close to done, so hopefully publishing (read: maybe a small income) is in the not-too-distant future, plus I have two dance film ideas that can hopefully happen by the end of this year, but I can't assume both of those will sustain us. There's no money in dance films unless those films bring in choreographer contracts.

The other day, I remembered for the first time in a long time how my dad, a self-employed contractor, has never lacked for work. Whenever he started getting to the end of his bookings, the phone would start ringing again and he'd suddenly be back to booking six to eight months in advance again. He did no advertising, but he never ran out of work. God always brought more contracts. And I wonder if that's what I -- what we -- need to do. I never realised till now how frightening it must have been at times to know how completely our family's lives were in God's hands, how the only reason my dad ever had work was because God brought it to him. It's completely possible -- I lived it. Everything I ever had as a child -- food, lodging, clothing, lessons -- were as a direct result of God's provision. But my dad is also a much more righteous person than I am. God has blessed him, a righteous man. But I -- I am not the good Christian I used to be. My mid-to-late twenties were a very dark time and I made some very poor choices in those years when I thought God had abandoned me and nothing mattered anymore.

I am less than a decade away from the age my dad was when he started his business. It's not too late. Maybe it's the perfect time. I am in a more calm place now than I was in 2019 when my mindset was 'theatre professional or bust'... and I almost quite literally busted. I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps for every audition, every gig, every piece of choreography, every show, and I almost literally died. The only thing that stopped the madness was the pandemic and even then it was years before I properly acknowledged that I was burnt out and that I needed to breathe in for a while without pressuring myself to create -- at least not at the level I had been.

Or maybe it's too soon. Knowing I have a neurological condition that sets me up to do things before thinking them through is making me paranoid that I'm missing something vitally important and I'd be rushing into things if I quit my day job now. There's also the fact that every time I even think about coming close to broaching this topic with my husband (because isn't a good wife supposed to discuss these kinds of things with her significant other?), he suddenly relapses back into the angry person who rages at me for hours over literally nothing and of course I have to put my life on pause and sideline all my exhaustion and all my needs until I can talk him into being a reasonable human being again.

Again... how on earth am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to follow a leader I can't see? How can I follow the timing of a clock that doesn't exist?

Missing Person

Written 4 June 2022, 1.24pm.

Trigger warning: su*c*de

I've been thinking a lot lately about who I used to be. That passionate, fiery, justice-loving, people-loving, fiercely kind, deeply-trusting person.

I keep thinking about when I was eighteen. The friends I had, the joy and the time and the clarity and the passion I had. I'm still in contact with some of the important people in my life from that time; the rest have all died. I was genuinely content to sit in my pink bedroom and choreograph Petra and White Heart songs. That was the time in my life when I felt the most complete and the most spiritually satisfied. I had a thirst for God that I didn't appreciate at the time, and in retrospect it showed. I fell into a couple of traditionalist traps, but by and large I was a fighter for true justice and love even then. A lot of my views at least mildly clashed with the religious establishment, but I was skilled enough in writing to persuade several key figures to at least properly consider what I was saying.

I keep thinking what could have been. What if I had ended up with that guy from youth group? What if my cousin had never died? What if I had never gone to college -- or at least that college?

That's a big one. The day I arrived, my faith started dying. It was slow at first, but accelerated tenfold when Brittney died and none of my college friends cared. And instead of getting out after my second year when I had the chance, I fought to return -- to return to the place that pushed me to such dire depths, spiritually. I was severely depressed, deeply wounded, and grieving, and I ran out of province back to a place that was also abusing me, but in new and different ways.

By the time I left college, I was no longer the happy, joyful, passionate person I had been when I had started. The stress of the insane performing arts course load and the abuse from the director who tricked me into believing he had my best interests at heart had taken a heavy physical toll. I was probably a couple of months away from death, based on my physical health alone (I'm not even thinking about the severe depression I was in when I graduated). Instead of being a launchpad for what could have been a beautiful, God-honouring life, college was the death knell for me. I have so many still-bleeding emotional wounds that can be traced directly to that school, that director. Almost every single one of my dreams have died because of him and his words to me. He would say 'performers have to have thick skin,' but the fact is he is abusive and uses that phrase to justify his atrocities. I had thicker skin before I went to college than I do now. I had courage. I had spunk. I had joy. I had passion. I had LIFE, and now every single speck of all of that is gone.

I miss who I used to be.

In my pain and abandonment from God's people, I pushed away God Himself. And now I'm trapped in a tiny desert town with an absurdly high cost of living, absolutely no emotional support, and 'well-meaning' in-laws who are trying their best to take the place of that abusive man. It used to be nothing for me to jump in the van and drive several hours to do a show, or hang out with friends, or try something new. And now I never leave the house -- partly gas prices, and partly fear. I can feel my soul shriveling up and dying a little with every second I live, every breath I take.

I attempted suicide on 8 March 2017, and now, over five years later, I wish more than ever that I had done it then. I wish my life would have ended that day. But I trusted that things would get better, and five years later, they've gotten worse. My soul is dead, and that's a fate worse that still lungs. Every morning I wake up is the same and that's the one thing I never wanted to happen. I wanted to live with passion and joy and verve and courage and life, and I am doing none of that.

I want to busk. I want to make dance films. I want to make shows. I want to learn new styles of dance. I want to write publicly again. I want to be able to have an opinion and not be literally abused for it. I want to be free again. I'm not free. I am in a prison of 'if you do this, I will withhold the love I promised you and stab swords of stinging words into your heart.' I am in a prison of working eight hours a day at something that's fast-paced, but not intellectually stimulating. I am in a prison of hearing over and over the words 'you're not even trying and you have no business doing this.' I am in a prison of being years behind my peers in terms of experience because I stubbornly stuck to a college that had absolutely no intention of actually training me within the field that I went there for, and I had not even begun to heal those wounds before rushing off into marriage and bringing all of that anger and pain into a relationship that did not deserve such a burden and now is so broken by my issues it may never recover.

I miss who I used to be. I would kill to get her back.

Respect

It's well-known here that I do not get along with my in-laws. Specifically, one particular in-law.

That infuriates my husband to no end. He's long since accepted their abusive ways (after all, for twenty years he had no choice) and thinks they're completely normal, but I, with 1. my strong sense of right and wrong/justice, and 2. my growth-and-learning mindset that my own parents very intentionally fostered in me, do not and will not. I decided after college that I will no longer tolerate abuse, and that very definitely extends to family. Including married-in family.

The problem is, my husband was raised to 'respect his elders.' Not because they have earned respect, but because they 'said so.' Because they're older than him. (This, I've heard, is pretty typical of abusers.) And he demands that I do the same, because they destroyed his mind and spirit so thoroughly that he cannot think of doing anything different.

I, however, have been raised to challenge the status quo. Mind you, I did this naturally anyway, but my parents were smart enough to redirect it rather than punish it. They taught me that respect must be earned, not given, no matter how old they are and how much authority they have. My own parents earned my respect by hearing me out whenever I challenged them on something. They didn't always agree with me in the end (sometimes they did, but definitely not always), but they listened to me and addressed the underlying concerns behind my challenge. (This was the problem with the profs at college... they prescribed quick fixes that treated the symptom, not the cause; they didn't listen and address. As such, I got labeled a 'problem student' and was relentlessly bullied and verbally abused BY MY INSTRUCTORS for the better part of five years because they thought they were better than everyone and couldn't shut up and listen for just five minutes.) My parents encouraged me to think. A lot. 'Critical thinking skills' is still one of my mother's favourite phrases, and it shows in the way she educated us. My husband classifies himself as a rebel, but he's regularly scandalised by the things I say over the course of a normal day because he was severely (I would argue brutally) punished for saying far milder things.

My in-laws have questioned EVERY SINGLE ONE of my husband and I's choices since we met. He and I planned our wedding together and then had the entire thing absolutely destroyed by my in-laws because they actively hated everything I wanted for my own wedding. I actively block out the memory of our wedding day, because it wasn't my wedding and it never will be. It was absolutely not the wedding I wanted. It didn't represent me at all, only them. And I will never get that opportunity again. We will never get to have the wedding we wanted. That's supposed to be a HUGE core memory for almost every married couple and I literally can't even think about my wedding without wanting to scream, or injure myself, or both. I'm crying as I type this.

I used to love posting my art publicly. I loved writing on social media. I loved posting my dance videos. I loved sharing about my life honestly, the good and the bad. I loved interacting with the (many) people who loved my work. All it took was one little 'good Christian' family to destroy all of it. As soon as my husband and I got engaged, every single thing I posted became grounds for World War III. It is absolutely not possible to overstate the intensity of the multi-day screaming matches, the awful words they would say, and the gaslighting whenever I'd call them out on their toxicity. Gas was $1.39 a litre here today. Their gaslighting is so thick they could charge eight bucks a litre. You could power a loaded semi truck for months with that stuff, and it's just as toxic for the environment.

What I don't understand is why I'm supposed to respect my in-laws when they don't do the same to me. 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' goes BOTH ways, not just one, and I refuse to be bullied into being a pawn in their stupid little game of control.

I will respect them when -- and ONLY when -- 1. they start hearing me out FULLY instead of bullying me after one (1) word (taken completely out of context), 2. they start realising that they've never lived my life and cannot possibly understand it, let alone re-write it, and 3. they realise I'm my own person and survived the first twenty-five years of my life QUITE nicely without their interference/micro-managing, thank you very much.

And even then... only after they've made a long, consistent habit of doing those three things.

Checkmate

I've talked before about my struggles with memory loss. This frustration with myself came to a head while producing my most recent dance film, but it has long been seeping into every aspect of my creative life and eroding my confidence.

In mid-February, I attended a tap festival. For an extra fee, one could present a piece before the festival faculty for feedback. Terrified but wanting to know where I stood in such a diverse field, I paid the fee and then agonised over which piece to present.

I've choreographed so many pieces, and since my college years, a good many of them have been solo tap dances (because they were easy to film and post on Instagram to show that I really was working on my performance skills -- not that that convinced anybody, apparently). At first my plan was to memorise one of the more recent works, but as the film became a behemoth that demanded every single second of my free time, I decided to fall back onto a much older piece that's been my mental noodling piece since I choreographed it in 2018. This was -- ironically -- mostly because I had it completely memorised and could whip it out at will. My feet ran through it on my work break at least every other day without much thought. I had this piece.

But as the presentation time drew near, the looming dark cloud of dread that I would find a way to forget this piece threatened to eat me alive. I couldn't remember anything else. What made me think I could remember this?

I tried to shove the fear away, knowing that if I focused on a poor outcome, of course I would produce a poor performance. I ran it through mentally a couple times with nary a pause. I knew this piece. I knew this piece.

Thirty seconds into performing it, I completely blanked.

I was in front of Dianne Walker, of all people. I couldn't just stop. So I jumped to the next thing I could remember -- my placeholder set of 32 counts of buck single time steps. And I camped on it for 64 counts -- nearly half the dance. I threw in the few phrases I could remember, but all I could think was I'm presenting my own choreography in front of Dianne Walker and not only am I not doing  the choreography, I'm doing beginner time steps of all things. But I smiled and eventually I remembered some other sections and managed to at least sort of land the ending.

Of course, after such a showing, the consensus of the feedback session was, 'it was simplistic.' I was frustrated, don't get me wrong. That choreography was so complicated and so intricate and I hadn't even done half of it. They hadn't even seen what the dance really was. But not one of them said, 'I could tell you forgot.' These were industry professionals, most of whom have been dancing longer than I've been alive. If anybody would have noticed, it was them.

I went back to my seat after the session and told myself, defiantly, 'I can improv. I don't need to fear memory loss anymore. I can busk.'

See, for years (literally years) I've been wanting to busk. It's both extra cash and practice. What's not to love? But the problem was despite my impressive back catalogue of choreographed tap solos, I could not manage to learn even one of them. And I wanted to have a solid forty-five minutes of solo work in my feet before I went out busking, so my dancing would be worth paying for -- even if it was only a handful of coins. But what I learned after that experience was that I could improv an entire piece in front of a crowd -- even a very knowledgeable crowd. I was completely capable of it. Memory loss could not stop me now. So what if I forgot the dance? It completely within my abilities to improv my way through and now I knew that for a FACT.

It was a powerful moment. After three years of being cut down and shrunk to nothing because of my memory loss, I finally -- finally -- had something that the memory loss could not touch. I could still dance whether my stupid memory liked it or not. I had checkmated my memory loss.

Filmmaker's Block

 I've had a dance film in pre-production for the better part of seven years now.

It's a duet, and the person I had originally wanted to do the duet part is dead -- that's how long I've sat on this. The person currently cast for the role is actually the third person I've contacted about this.

Everything is in place -- costumes are ready, storyboarding is done, we've been rehearsing... but I just can't pull the trigger on filming this piece. It needs to be shot outdoors in the summertime, and the window for that is closing fast.

It's not like I haven't done this before. I've produced two 'official' dance films, at least two 'rehearsal performance' films, and a sizeable handful of live performance videos. This shouldn't be that hard.

But this is a duet.

All the other videos are either solo or feature my siblings. This is the first one that features somebody that's not a blood relative of mine. We've worked together on other projects and she always brings competence and enthusiasm, yet I'm so intimidated about having somebody else perform my choreography. This has been my dream for literally decades. So why am I freezing now?

As much as I would like to blame college, I don't think they're on the hook for this one -- at least not entirely. They were extremely, conspicuously silent on any and all dance films I've posted so far (and I made the bulk of them while a student there, so they definitely knew about them), which, I suppose, is better than the 'you'll never be good enough/you're not trying hard enough/you're making yourself fail' BS that they usually drummed into my brain every single day.

In many ways, I see this as my last chance. I'm terrified that she won't like performing in it, but I'm also terrified that my husband won't support the travel I'm going to need to undertake to shoot the duet scenes, terrified that my in-laws are going to use this as one more reason to abuse me and manipulate my husband into lecturing me for several hours on end on a work night, terrified that my inexperience in film editing will make this look like trash and me like a wannabe who will never be, terrified that all the people who have given up on me (so, basically everyone) aren't going to respond -- at all.

There's so much to lose. There's so much to lose. And if I lose this time, I'm not convinced I have enough support around me to get back up again. If I lose this time, I'm scared there may not ever be a next time.

I have no community around me -- either in dance or in my location. I feel like I'm naked in the desert with a target on my back, surrounded by the guns of people who claimed they loved me. One wrong move and I'm gone. If this was a solo video, it would be one thing. But I don't want to drag this other dancer down with me too.

Vulnerability

In years past, I was known for my bluntness and honesty, in all situations, 'socially acceptable' or not. This kept the weird neurotypicals at arms' length and brought the neurodiverse people who actually tell you exactly what they're thinking into my circle.

Then I went to college.

A common theme among my directors and professors was vulnerability. "You need to be more vulnerable." "You need to be more open." I couldn't understand what they were on about. I asked them so many times to define, to explain, to give an example of what they meant, but none of them could. The main one would smile sardonically and say, "I think you already know." But I didn't. How could I be vulnerable? In all my brutal honesty, what had I missed? What was I hiding that they didn't already know?

And the other day while doing the dishes it hit me.

They wanted me to be honest.

But there was a fatal flaw in their logic -- they assumed I was not already being honest. This was why I could not understand what they wanted -- I was already doing it, but they wouldn't recognise that and instead kept telling me I was wrong. The fact that they could never once explain to me over the course of five years what I was missing/doing wrong should have tipped me off that I was not actually doing anything wrong. But I knew I was inexperienced and I was trying to trust their 'experience.'

I went through an obscene amount of emotional pain in college. The death count alone from those years of my life exceeds the death toll of friends of people twice my age. I drew on that heavily for my first character -- Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden. The child loses both parents and the only home she's ever known to cholera. Surely she's haunted and grieving when she first arrives in England. I think this is what made my performance of that show so great. I could relate to the emotions of the character. And yet, I remember the director telling me that the character (at the beginning) needed to be 'happier.' He gave no reason for this. I ignored him, of course... even then, my acting instincts kicked in to save the show from his incompetence. While that's not the way I should have gone about it, he was also at fault for not being willing to acknowledge the emotional states of all the characters at all points of the show. He used this incident as proof that I was 'too stubborn' and 'refusing to be vulnerable' and ultimately used it to justify actively preventing me from getting my diploma.

To him, 'vulnerable' meant 'happy.' To me, 'vulnerable' means 'honest -- no matter what.'

To be happy at the exclusion of all other emotions -- no matter how valid -- is to skip over at minimum half of the human experience. To be vulnerable is to be honest about every emotion, not just happiness.

I maintain that I am more vulnerable every single day of my life than he perhaps has ever been at any point of his.

Honesty

3 April 2022, 5.37pm; 2 May 2022, 7.53pm.

I've always been a brutally honest person. This is probably one of the most obvious manifestations of my ADHD/autism and is definitely the neurodiverse trait that loses me the most friends/potential friends. I say exactly what I mean, not the social nicety beat-around-the-bush say-the-opposite-of-what-you-actually-mean code for what I mean.

This means, as someone with depression and an encyclopedia's worth of tragic backstory, I am VERY open and honest about depression and emotional pain. This led to my ex-church telling me God couldn't love me (this after telling me for eighteen years of my life that 'honesty is the best policy?' Make it make sense), as well as my program director deliberately sabotaging my Bachelor's degree -- I was 'too negative,' therefore he in his infinite wisdom decided I, as a deeply wounded and actively grieving person, was not worthy of holding a postsecondary degree and did everything in his power to make it so. While he did underestimate my stubbornness and sheer force of will, I would be lying if I said that he didn't erode my confidence.

The two nails in the coffin came from my now in-laws and one of my bridesmaids. In-law has decided to take offense with EVERYTHING I say. And I do mean everything. Anything I post online, handwrite, or say out loud is fair game. No matter what I say, they WILL find something 'wrong' with it. And their definition of 'wrong' is very different from the rest of the world's definition of 'wrong.' Oh, but they're never criticising... they're "only trying to help" and it's not their fault if I'm "too stubborn to let people help" me. If the definition of 'help' now means 'set fire to the Titanic on the way down,' then yes, they're doing a bang-up job.

The second one was someone who I thought was a very good friend. So much so that not only was she one of my bridesmaids in my very small wedding, my husband and I donated a fair amount of money to help with her medical expenses less than six months ago. Less than two months later, she blocked me with the excuse, 'my mental health is too fragile to deal with your problems.' So much for her assertion that she was always going to be there for me and that it was 'okay not to be okay.'

So I hid. I cut contact with literally everybody except my husband, my parents, my siblings, and one (1) friend. I essentially stopped using social media, and I kept work conversations strictly work-related. If nobody wanted to hear from the real me, they weren't going to. I even stopped talking to my in-laws except when absolutely necessary. It took almost thirty years, but I had finally gotten the message. I -- the true, authentic, real me -- was NOT wanted. Anywhere.

This worked for six months. I even stopped talking to the people who I hadn't actively cut off unless they talked to me first. I was just so tired of being rejected and guilt-tripped and bullied and abused just for being honest about myself and my experiences. I could feel my soul shriveling and dying, and I was quite literally praying every single day that God would just kill me. If I couldn't be honest, I didn't want to live anymore. I was actually dismayed when I realised that my sudden spells of vertigo were actually a concussion, not a malignant brain tumour as I had hoped.

Then it came out during an argument that I had been keeping how bad my mental health was from my husband. He was so upset he didn't speak to me for three days (as if that was going to make me want to die any less). Under threat of divorce, I promised that I would be honest, but warned him it wouldn't be pretty. He was so upset he agreed.

At this same time, I was actively working on an outline for Kyrie so I could maybe finally properly rewrite it. The ENTIRE plot of this story hinges on the main character's ruthless honesty. Turns out it's really hard to write about a brutally honest character when you can't be brutally honest yourself.

Then, I had the opportunity to sit in a zoom class with Dianne Walker -- the Dianne Walker, the Ella Fitzgerald of tap dance. And near the end she spent TWENTY MINUTES emphasizing how important it is for the tap dancer (really, the artist in general) to be honest, brutally honest, even if that's not the happiest place in the world.

When that class ended, I sat there and wrote in my journal for half an hour about how angry I was that I had let so many people beat the honesty -- beat the artist -- out of me. How angry I was at my in-laws especially for trying to run my thought life (funny how the 1984-style conspiracy theorists are the ones who are most concerned with controlling how people word things and how people are 'allowed' to think). Here is an excerpt from my initial reaction:

I spent five years of my life having the honesty gaslighted, shamed, and manipulated out of me at a ‘Christian’ performing arts college, of all places (after all, aren’t Christians supposed to be honest? isn’t art supposed to be honest?). My spirit suffered beyond what words can convey. It led to an eating disorder and a very troubled marriage. All I wanted was to die. If I could not be honest, then there was no other alternative. To live is to be honest. To share life with people is to be honest. All I ever wanted was to be honest and to share my life with honest people, in a spirit of giving, receiving, accomplishment, and growth. I knew as a young teen that honesty was paramount in art, but I let [college program director] and [church deacon] and [in-law] beat it out of me with their manipulation and vile, vicious words.

I used to say great art was beautiful, but now I say that great art is honest. My greatest art has come from honesty — not pain, specifically (though sometimes that is what I must be honest about), but honesty.

Sehnsucht, One More Time, Joy And Suffering, Kyrie, and, in a burgeoning way, Emotional Tourist all came from a raw and honest place and THOSE are my greatest accomplishments.

My creative output slowed not long after Brittney and my cousin died, and stopped entirely after M died. I thought it was the fact that they died that stopped the creativity, but now that I think about it, it wasn't the deaths themselves, it was how much I was bullied for openly grieving about their deaths that stopped it.

It's funny how people get so offended about grief. Not 'uncomfortable,' downright OFFENDED. I have had my career, my academic future, my friendships, and my marriage threatened by people who couldn't handle my honesty -- even if that includes honesty about grief or my mental illness. I don't understand that, because the very nature of honesty means you are honest at all times. 'Selective honesty' is not honesty -- that's manipulation.

Enough of that. I want to be an artist again. I want to live again, and to live is to be honest.

Return... To What?

Yesterday was my first live performance since February 2020 -- twenty-seven months ago. It was my first performance as a married woman, the first since my ADHD diagnosis, and the first performance where I didn't know a single person in either the show or the audience.

This was a curated show for National Tap Dance Day, and my class learned our entire piece over Zoom specifically for this show. I didn't meet a single one of my classmates till the day of.

I also had nobody come to see it. My family and my best friend couldn't afford the gas money (who could, really?), my in-laws were camping, and my husband stayed home as a precaution because of his health issues. I didn't have a single person the audience to greet me after the show.

This turned out to be a good thing, as it was far from the triumphant return to the stage that I hoped it would be. Dress rehearsal went well... too well. I tried to push the apprehension out of my mind, but when I pushed the apprehension away, I apparently also pushed away all memory of the second half of the dance. It was an absolute train wreck. It probably sounded like one too. I skipped huge chunks of sounds all while trying desperately to make it at least LOOK like I was doing the same thing as my classmates.

I know it's been a long time, but watching how well everyone else was doing in dress rehearsal after the same two-year interruption that I experienced made me feel even more like a has-been who really never was. I had thought -- or maybe hoped in vain -- that the long sabbatical would refresh my mind and my muscles. Apparently this was not the case. And I don't know how to come back.

So much has changed-- not just in the world, in me. I don't know who I am anymore. I was thrust so quickly into this identity that I never expected -- a wife -- in a time where not a single speck of the rest of my life was 'normal.' I had no anchor on which to build my new identity, so I cobbled together some scraps ('ADHD,' 'forgetful,' and my so-called 'friends' supplied the ever-popular 'too negative') the best I could. I tried to return to the old one -- to 'dancer' -- and my brain said 'no matches found.'

I don't know what to do. Do I try to get it back? I want to. But how?