(Title is self-explanatory. My fiancé and I thought it would be fun to write the story of how we met and publish both sides of it. For the extended version -- A.K.A. my version -- click here.)
Hi, I'm Jacob, Kate's fiance. I'm 6'3" tall, fluffy, bearded man with tattoos.
This is our story from my point of view.
I want to start this story with why I joined the Passion Play in 2019. The whole winter and start of summer I had people say to me that I was happy that I was in the Passion Play in 2016 and that was true but I was not really happy and not feeling God in my life so I just thought why should I even be allowed to go to do something I loved and the people I loved, if He wanted me to join give me a sign and yet they were all around me and I didn't even know it at the time. It was May 17 I woke and still felt that I should go to the Passion Play and I called my mother and asked what should I do about it, she said trust in God and do what He says so I did and I rode my bike to the Passion Play not knowing His plan so I watched the first half of rehearsal and said to myself I'll trust in God and sign up. When I went to sign up my name -- full name -- was signed up for the Passion Play and I asked around to all my old friends and none of then signed my name, so there was a reason for me to join and I had to find out why.
The day was June 15, 2019, it was a nice sunny day no rain in sight that I remember.
It was the start of that week of PP (Passion Play), and I've been doubting God through 5 weekends, asking 'why am I here?'
Right when we start warmup, I see this geeky little girl (remember I'm 6'3), as I said sunny day, but she's wearing a sunhat, jean shorts, pink fluffy legwarmers, and at the time I thought she was wearing a winter jacket. But I was wrong, it was a rain jacket and 2 hoodies. First impression was 'how the heck is she cold?' I'm a hot blooded man, I'm wearing a tank top, shorts, and sandals. I didn't see her again till lunch but sadly I didn't sit with her because I was sitting with friends (this is my second time in the PP).
When I noticed that no one was sitting with her and she was lonely, I got up and put one step in and we were told we had to start up again.
So I was invited to the PP camp site yet I live in the same town as the PP. I was in a camper called Betsy (I am friends with the owner of Betsy). I was invited for a beer and games so I came and it was fun, still doubting God but I listened. After a hour and a half of of talking and not playing the games (I'm not a game player I like watching them though), the door opened and I looked and 2 people walked in. And ding ding you guessed it Sarah was one of them. She walked in the same outfit that I first saw her in. She was so quiet and shy that she didn't say a word, it was weird for me not to say "hi I'm Jacob and what's your name" and there was no answer so I thought to be kind and wait for a little bit and ask again, that didn't happen because I said "does anyone smell gas?" she by accident turned Betsy's gas stove on. After that I said, "There's a spot next to me." She said, "No, I'm gonna go." I said, "Let's talk for a bit before you go." She sat and we talked for an hour. I was the one who started off the conversation with my story (too long to tell, if you want to know ask Sarah-Kate and maybe I'll do a part 2). She was interested in my story of my faith and pain that was night 1 that I met Sarah-Kate.
The next morning I thought to myself why the hell did I share my life story to a girl I don't even know. It's going to be weird seeing her again today (I thought this while riding my bike to the PP). I was fine not seeing her again till lunch (I had a lot to do; I had 6 or 7 roles to do in the PP). I was so busy I didn't have lunch that day. But I was again invited to the campground for games so I went. And ding ding she came back to Betsy, and this time she opened up with her life off faith and pain (if you want to know about her faith and pain just read her blog). I thought it was cool we kinda have a similar story but not the same, but this time it was a longer talk, like 3 hours' worth, but it was weird I walked her to her van where she was sleeping at the time to say goodnight. Again, something I never do.
I didn't see her for another week and yet I missed talking to someone who got a similar story like mine, and yet I was excited to go back this time and I didn't know why.
I started to hang out with her more and more and I felt happy and it was weird, later in our relationship I found out that she felt safe with me, a guy she didn't even know. I got off track -- I felt angry, happy, and sad at the same time that the days were getting closer to the end of PP.
Opening day I prayed for a sign that what she was was a friend, not a girlfriend, but if she was the one for me, give me a sign. That day she asked to be my friend on Facebook. Later again in the relationship she just wanted to add me but thought it would be weird that she just added me and no one else from the PP.
So I took it to God and trusted Him. That day, opening day, I said to her, "I think I like you" and went to do my stuff, thinking she probably thinks I'm a dick for telling her I like her and leaving right after that. Honestly I felt like a dick. The whole show I wasn't in the same scene as her so I didn't feel super bad. She offered to drive me to the campsite and I thought sh*t she's not gonna be my friend anymore. I was wrong. She said she didn't date guys in the same show that she was in, and I said, "I will wait," and we were friends and that was cool. After losing 3 shows due to weather and a tornado warning, the end of the show was here and she and I were sitting in her van, and said "well, it's the end of the show, what do you think?" She said, "about what?" Then I told her again that I liked her and what she thought of it. We have been talking on Facebook a lot, not about us, about PP things we like and don't like, you know, friend stuff. When she thought for a while she said to me, "I do like you," and I said, "Then let's try it. If it doesn't work at least we can be good friends." She agreed.
And now we're engaged, but that's a story for another time.
20 January 2020
09 January 2020
New Year? Can't Tell...
2020. The start of a new decade, a new dawn, a new hope. A fresh slate, a brand-new start.
Nine days in and there have been two more deaths, a full-on identity crisis, a huge row over the wedding and it's now on hold, I've been fighting a chest infection for a month and still have a stabbing pain in my lung that hampers every single breath I take, and I lay in bed till 2pm every single day because I have literally no reason to get up in the morning. Or the afternoon for that matter.
I don't even know where to start.
All I ever wanted was to dance. I went into musical theatre because a certain program director told me I was not cut out to dance and that was my only real option (even though he also told me I'm not cut out to sing either).
I'm increasingly starting to resent musical theatre. I wanted to dance. But because of the money situation (see my post dedicated to that rant), I can't keep up my dance training. I thought musical theatre would get me into the dance world more easily, but it didn't. The last two dance callbacks I've done have been abysmal and I don't blame them for not casting me.
I'm starting to let auditions pass me by. There's no point and I can't afford the gas money to get to the rehearsals anyway. I don't want to do theatre. I don't want to do anything. I'm not sure I even want to be alive... I don't know that my existence means anything to anyone anymore.
I wanted to start 2020 off without complaining. I wanted to have a more positive attitude. I swear I did. Nobody believes me about that anymore -- I say I want to be positive and I do make an effort but then another rash of devastating things happens and how the hell am I supposed to stay positive through that? Stay positive? My friends are dead.
I tried. I try over and over and over again. I try so hard, so many times. I keep getting up and I keep trying again and it's like nobody believes me and nobody cares.
Nine days in and there have been two more deaths, a full-on identity crisis, a huge row over the wedding and it's now on hold, I've been fighting a chest infection for a month and still have a stabbing pain in my lung that hampers every single breath I take, and I lay in bed till 2pm every single day because I have literally no reason to get up in the morning. Or the afternoon for that matter.
I don't even know where to start.
All I ever wanted was to dance. I went into musical theatre because a certain program director told me I was not cut out to dance and that was my only real option (even though he also told me I'm not cut out to sing either).
I'm increasingly starting to resent musical theatre. I wanted to dance. But because of the money situation (see my post dedicated to that rant), I can't keep up my dance training. I thought musical theatre would get me into the dance world more easily, but it didn't. The last two dance callbacks I've done have been abysmal and I don't blame them for not casting me.
I'm starting to let auditions pass me by. There's no point and I can't afford the gas money to get to the rehearsals anyway. I don't want to do theatre. I don't want to do anything. I'm not sure I even want to be alive... I don't know that my existence means anything to anyone anymore.
I wanted to start 2020 off without complaining. I wanted to have a more positive attitude. I swear I did. Nobody believes me about that anymore -- I say I want to be positive and I do make an effort but then another rash of devastating things happens and how the hell am I supposed to stay positive through that? Stay positive? My friends are dead.
I tried. I try over and over and over again. I try so hard, so many times. I keep getting up and I keep trying again and it's like nobody believes me and nobody cares.
31 December 2019
I Am Trying, I Swear
I picked the literal worst year in the history of Alberta to get married.
I've had almost ten other perfectly good, not-economically-abysmal years that I could have used to meet him and get married. But nope, dumb Kate has to pick this year, of all years. Nobody in Alberta has money, and even less people in Alberta have any sympathy. Alberta is a province of hard, determined workers who will themselves into a job and have exactly zero sympathy for anybody who's struggling to find work. It is worse in Alberta to be on financial assistance than it is to be a Nazi.
It's so frustrating. I only moved back to Alberta because I got no paying work after two years -- read that again, two years -- of job-hunting in Saskatchewan. I have applied for I swear every single job in Alberta. Every single one. I have applied for everything I may be even remotely qualified for, and even quite a few jobs that I am not qualified for. I have applied for everything, in pretty well every field of employment. Cashier, food services, waitressing, construction/contracting, sales associates, secretary, janitorial, grocery clerk, post office, farmhand, dishwasher -- you name it, I have applied for it. I promise. I have applied for all of the above in five different towns/cities in the past two days, in fact.
I cry a lot nowadays -- half because I miss my sweet fiancé so much (stupid long-distance), but half because I can't fund my own wedding and I'm losing to ability to convince everyone else that I really actually do want to help finance my wedding. Even his family seems to think I'm expecting a free ride somehow but I swear I am not. I am trying as hard as I know how and if there was a way I could be guaranteed a job, I would have done it already. My parents are experiencing their absolute worst year financially since I was a very young child, so they can't afford to help me out, no matter how much they would love to. I swear I'm not being lazy. I would absolutely pay for this entire wedding out of my own pocket if I could. If it has to be, I will go beg on street corners to get the money together for this wedding without asking any of our family for any more help. I am NOT lazy, and I am NOT looking for a free ride in anything. I know it takes hard work. All I'm looking for is a job.
It would be so easy to just move in together and call it done. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and way less stressful. But I really want to do this right. I want to have an official Christian wedding. I want to be married before we live together. I want to do the right thing.
Yes, we could sign documents, get legally married, and have a party later -- but we all know the 'have a party later' thing never really happens. If we don't pull together the money for it now, will we really have the discipline to pull it together later, after we're already married? What's the point of it then? People won't take it as seriously then and then they're less likely to come celebrate with us anyway.
Sure, we could postpone the wedding a year or two -- but I hate this long-distance thing. I hate being apart from him, and I want to be with him as much as possible as soon as possible. (For the record, we already have postponed our wedding three months.)
We've cut down the budget as far as it can go. We got our wedding down from an initial $10,000 projected budget to $4,000. We are getting a lot of things at a reduced rate due to networking. There is nothing else we can cut... except the dance.
I never planned out my future wedding as a child, a teen, or even a young adult. I didn't have a dream venue, or dress, or flower arrangement figured out, or a Pinterest board of decorations, or a playlist of songs I wanted. The only thing -- the literal only dream I had about my future wedding (if there even was one) was the dance. I wanted a dance.
I was flowergirl in my aunt and uncle's wedding when I was young. The only thing I remember about that wedding -- besides cupping my aunt's face in my little five-year-old hands and telling her she looked beautiful -- was the dance. I watched all sorts of people get onto the dance floor and dance to the music and I loved it. From that age, I knew that if I ever got married, I wanted a dance at my wedding. That was the only dream I had about my wedding before my engagement. The only one.
And of course that's the most expensive thing. That's the easiest thing to cut, financially. Both the hall and the DJ are big-ticket expenses, and both are dispensable. This puts me into a state of extreme stress (even more than unemployment already has done)...
I want a dance. It's my only dream.
But it's expensive.
But that was the only thing I ever dreamed of having at my wedding.
But you could cut the budget in half if you dropped it.
But it was my dream.
But you don't have a job. You can't fund it. And you can't in good conscience make everyone else fund it when you're already contributing diddly-squat.
But I've always wanted a dance.
It's not like it's a necessity. Grow up.
But I'm only ever going to have one wedding...
And now I'm crying again.
It's starting to feel like God made me defective. Literally all my passions are the exact things that western society will not pay for. Even my artistic siblings have jobs, side passions that fit neatly into a trade or at least something that will pay them minimum wage. I'm willing to learn stuff outside of my passions -- I already have for previous jobs -- but first somebody in this God-forsaken prairie has to actually hire me.
I pray so much about this. I beg and I plead and I yank desperately at the hem of God's cloak but still He is silent. Just like He always has been toward me when I have been in need. I try to do the George Müller thing and not ask anybody else for money and just trust God for it but then my gas tank is empty again and I have rehearsal in literally forty-five minutes and I have no choice but to beg my friends and family on Facebook for money again. And I feel like scum doing that. I feel like the worst specimen of humanity when I have to beg my friends for money just to put gasoline in my vehicle. A lot of times it does feel like I would be better off dead -- I wouldn't cost anything anymore. The literal only thing that stops me is the thought of how devastated my fiancé would be.
I hate that all I think about now is money. I hate that everything is so tied to money. I hate that I'm obsessed with it now, but I have to be -- you cannot exist in western society without it, even if your tastes aren't expensive and you know how to stretch a dollar. A dollar only stretches so far before it breaks.
Everyone talks about the faithfulness of God. Everyone else talks of His miracles of provision. I can't even tell you how many people just in the past week have said to me, 'just let go and let God,' or 'just pray more, and I guarantee...' You don't think I haven't been doing that? You don't think I have prayed my face off for the past two years of my unemployed (and therefore worthless) existence? I have confessed sins, I have prayed for guidance, I have taken risks, I have worked hard, I have tried. What yet do I lack? What magical ingredient am I missing that God still requires from me? I thought His grace to us was just that -- grace. Not based on our merit or our works, but our need. Not once have I pointed to my Bible college degree. Not once have I pointed to a lifetime of church attendance and tithing. Not once. All I have said, over and over and OVER again, is, 'God, you know I need to be able to pay for this. Please help me. Please provide.'
And He is silent.
I have great need, God -- and only some of it is financial. Do You care or not?
I've had almost ten other perfectly good, not-economically-abysmal years that I could have used to meet him and get married. But nope, dumb Kate has to pick this year, of all years. Nobody in Alberta has money, and even less people in Alberta have any sympathy. Alberta is a province of hard, determined workers who will themselves into a job and have exactly zero sympathy for anybody who's struggling to find work. It is worse in Alberta to be on financial assistance than it is to be a Nazi.
It's so frustrating. I only moved back to Alberta because I got no paying work after two years -- read that again, two years -- of job-hunting in Saskatchewan. I have applied for I swear every single job in Alberta. Every single one. I have applied for everything I may be even remotely qualified for, and even quite a few jobs that I am not qualified for. I have applied for everything, in pretty well every field of employment. Cashier, food services, waitressing, construction/contracting, sales associates, secretary, janitorial, grocery clerk, post office, farmhand, dishwasher -- you name it, I have applied for it. I promise. I have applied for all of the above in five different towns/cities in the past two days, in fact.
I cry a lot nowadays -- half because I miss my sweet fiancé so much (stupid long-distance), but half because I can't fund my own wedding and I'm losing to ability to convince everyone else that I really actually do want to help finance my wedding. Even his family seems to think I'm expecting a free ride somehow but I swear I am not. I am trying as hard as I know how and if there was a way I could be guaranteed a job, I would have done it already. My parents are experiencing their absolute worst year financially since I was a very young child, so they can't afford to help me out, no matter how much they would love to. I swear I'm not being lazy. I would absolutely pay for this entire wedding out of my own pocket if I could. If it has to be, I will go beg on street corners to get the money together for this wedding without asking any of our family for any more help. I am NOT lazy, and I am NOT looking for a free ride in anything. I know it takes hard work. All I'm looking for is a job.
It would be so easy to just move in together and call it done. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and way less stressful. But I really want to do this right. I want to have an official Christian wedding. I want to be married before we live together. I want to do the right thing.
Yes, we could sign documents, get legally married, and have a party later -- but we all know the 'have a party later' thing never really happens. If we don't pull together the money for it now, will we really have the discipline to pull it together later, after we're already married? What's the point of it then? People won't take it as seriously then and then they're less likely to come celebrate with us anyway.
Sure, we could postpone the wedding a year or two -- but I hate this long-distance thing. I hate being apart from him, and I want to be with him as much as possible as soon as possible. (For the record, we already have postponed our wedding three months.)
We've cut down the budget as far as it can go. We got our wedding down from an initial $10,000 projected budget to $4,000. We are getting a lot of things at a reduced rate due to networking. There is nothing else we can cut... except the dance.
I never planned out my future wedding as a child, a teen, or even a young adult. I didn't have a dream venue, or dress, or flower arrangement figured out, or a Pinterest board of decorations, or a playlist of songs I wanted. The only thing -- the literal only dream I had about my future wedding (if there even was one) was the dance. I wanted a dance.
I was flowergirl in my aunt and uncle's wedding when I was young. The only thing I remember about that wedding -- besides cupping my aunt's face in my little five-year-old hands and telling her she looked beautiful -- was the dance. I watched all sorts of people get onto the dance floor and dance to the music and I loved it. From that age, I knew that if I ever got married, I wanted a dance at my wedding. That was the only dream I had about my wedding before my engagement. The only one.
And of course that's the most expensive thing. That's the easiest thing to cut, financially. Both the hall and the DJ are big-ticket expenses, and both are dispensable. This puts me into a state of extreme stress (even more than unemployment already has done)...
I want a dance. It's my only dream.
But it's expensive.
But that was the only thing I ever dreamed of having at my wedding.
But you could cut the budget in half if you dropped it.
But it was my dream.
But you don't have a job. You can't fund it. And you can't in good conscience make everyone else fund it when you're already contributing diddly-squat.
But I've always wanted a dance.
It's not like it's a necessity. Grow up.
But I'm only ever going to have one wedding...
And now I'm crying again.
It's starting to feel like God made me defective. Literally all my passions are the exact things that western society will not pay for. Even my artistic siblings have jobs, side passions that fit neatly into a trade or at least something that will pay them minimum wage. I'm willing to learn stuff outside of my passions -- I already have for previous jobs -- but first somebody in this God-forsaken prairie has to actually hire me.
I pray so much about this. I beg and I plead and I yank desperately at the hem of God's cloak but still He is silent. Just like He always has been toward me when I have been in need. I try to do the George Müller thing and not ask anybody else for money and just trust God for it but then my gas tank is empty again and I have rehearsal in literally forty-five minutes and I have no choice but to beg my friends and family on Facebook for money again. And I feel like scum doing that. I feel like the worst specimen of humanity when I have to beg my friends for money just to put gasoline in my vehicle. A lot of times it does feel like I would be better off dead -- I wouldn't cost anything anymore. The literal only thing that stops me is the thought of how devastated my fiancé would be.
I hate that all I think about now is money. I hate that everything is so tied to money. I hate that I'm obsessed with it now, but I have to be -- you cannot exist in western society without it, even if your tastes aren't expensive and you know how to stretch a dollar. A dollar only stretches so far before it breaks.
Everyone talks about the faithfulness of God. Everyone else talks of His miracles of provision. I can't even tell you how many people just in the past week have said to me, 'just let go and let God,' or 'just pray more, and I guarantee...' You don't think I haven't been doing that? You don't think I have prayed my face off for the past two years of my unemployed (and therefore worthless) existence? I have confessed sins, I have prayed for guidance, I have taken risks, I have worked hard, I have tried. What yet do I lack? What magical ingredient am I missing that God still requires from me? I thought His grace to us was just that -- grace. Not based on our merit or our works, but our need. Not once have I pointed to my Bible college degree. Not once have I pointed to a lifetime of church attendance and tithing. Not once. All I have said, over and over and OVER again, is, 'God, you know I need to be able to pay for this. Please help me. Please provide.'
And He is silent.
I have great need, God -- and only some of it is financial. Do You care or not?
23 October 2019
The Cost of Dance
Life update: I have moved back home -- as in, to the little town where I grew up. My focus right now is on theatre and it's killing me because what I really want to do is dance. The city I was in this summer has WAY more dance opportunities and even training options than my home city. But I have literally zero savings to fall back on and it's cheaper to do theatre than dance. Yes, really.
First -- auditions.
I have never in my life paid for a theatre audition. I've auditioned for the biggest theatre company in Regina (twice), as well as the one in Edmonton. This past September alone I auditioned for thirteen small volunteer-based organizations. Not one of them -- not even the one that's several thousand dollars in the hole -- charged me an audition fee.
Conversely, every single dance audition I have ever done has come with an audition fee. I've paid as little as $25 and as much as $80 for a single dance audition. That's a lot of money to throw into the abyss on the tiniest off-chance that you might actually outshine the 300 other dancers who are no doubt also sending in video auditions.
Second -- training.
I had the opportunity this fall to train with one of western Canada's only tap ensembles but I had to pass it up because I was barely able to scrape together the last few dollars of my savings account for the audition fee (see above), let alone the $400+ required for registration for the actual training.
Dance training -- just to keep up your technique FOR auditions -- costs about a thousand dollars a year, per hour/week. (It does depend on the region a bit, but that's about average in western Canada.) Ideally, dancers at a professional level should be taking at LEAST twenty hours of class per week. That's $20,000 a year. That is fully half the average annual salary (in US dollars) for a professional dancer. That doesn't count transportation, pointe shoes ($120/pair, new pair every two weeks at that level of training), dancewear (one bodysuit averages $100), physiotherapy (every two weeks at least), and things like medication, counselling, food, rent -- you know, regular living expenses that everyone has to pay for.
On the other hand, I have never, ever had to pay for acting training (my degree doesn't count because I got exactly two acting classes out of a $100,000 degree and the director straight-up, to my face, refused to give me more even though my degree program actually required me to have more acting credits than that). All of my acting training has come on-site -- actually on the stage, in the rehearsal room, doing shows. I'm basically self-taught because nobody thought I was good enough for them to bother actually trying to teach me.
Third -- costumes.
In dance, there is always a costume fee. Always. From the time you're a three-year-old in a costume-shop tutu sickling your feet to the time you're a college student taking professional-level classes, you always, always, pay for every single costume you wear -- whether or not you are actually allowed to keep it.
In theatre, I have only paid a costume fee once. I've had to supply parts of my own costume -- slips, blouses -- but even the pieces that come out of the company costume room are free for me to use as long as I am in that particular production.
Fourth -- mentally.
Theatre is (usually) quite good at meeting their actors where they're at mentally and emotionally (my college and their 'you MUST be happy all the time whether or not the script even actually portrays this character as happy' attitude notwithstanding). They require a lot, but they also give a lot of empathy. If your depression is acting up, they'll accept whatever you can do with gentle encouragement. If you've twisted an ankle, they are happy to let you sit to the side with an ice pack as long as you're paying attention to what your blocking will be. If you haven't eaten in three days because you haven't had time, they will cobble together all their collective snacks and feed you, and they'll probably all remember your allergies and texture issues too.
Regarding dance, Sydney Magruder Washington has actually described it much better than I could in her excellent post on ballet and mental illness. Dancers are constantly told to shut up and smile. Grin and bear it. The show must go on. No negativity allowed. Ever. At all. Not even a hint of a breath of anything less than sunshine and rainbows and unicorn poop. And if you can't do it, there is NO END to the emotional and verbal abuse you will get if you can't fit the artistic director's mould of perfection and happiness, even during barre when you're still trying to get your exhausted eyelids to stay open. In dance, if you're having a rough depression day, you get fired on the spot. And then the director blacklists you to anybody who will listen for the rest of your life.
Also, for reference -- one (1) counselling appointment can be over $200. Each. When I was in my most intense period of counselling (which lasted for about eight months), I was going once a week, but probably should have been doing twice a week.
Don't tell me this huge financial disparity is because nobody goes to the ballet anymore -- nobody goes to the theatre anymore either, and yet the theatres somehow manage to run without soaking their usually-not-well-off performers for money. And when can these performers work? All the job openings insist on evenings and weekends. When do performing arts companies rehearse? Evenings and weekends. We can work OR we can perform, not both. And if we choose the latter, we can't even afford to get proper dance shoes, let alone get our properly-clad foot in the door with an audition.
All I want to do is dance, and I HATE that I'm too poor to afford it.
First -- auditions.
I have never in my life paid for a theatre audition. I've auditioned for the biggest theatre company in Regina (twice), as well as the one in Edmonton. This past September alone I auditioned for thirteen small volunteer-based organizations. Not one of them -- not even the one that's several thousand dollars in the hole -- charged me an audition fee.
Conversely, every single dance audition I have ever done has come with an audition fee. I've paid as little as $25 and as much as $80 for a single dance audition. That's a lot of money to throw into the abyss on the tiniest off-chance that you might actually outshine the 300 other dancers who are no doubt also sending in video auditions.
Second -- training.
I had the opportunity this fall to train with one of western Canada's only tap ensembles but I had to pass it up because I was barely able to scrape together the last few dollars of my savings account for the audition fee (see above), let alone the $400+ required for registration for the actual training.
Dance training -- just to keep up your technique FOR auditions -- costs about a thousand dollars a year, per hour/week. (It does depend on the region a bit, but that's about average in western Canada.) Ideally, dancers at a professional level should be taking at LEAST twenty hours of class per week. That's $20,000 a year. That is fully half the average annual salary (in US dollars) for a professional dancer. That doesn't count transportation, pointe shoes ($120/pair, new pair every two weeks at that level of training), dancewear (one bodysuit averages $100), physiotherapy (every two weeks at least), and things like medication, counselling, food, rent -- you know, regular living expenses that everyone has to pay for.
On the other hand, I have never, ever had to pay for acting training (my degree doesn't count because I got exactly two acting classes out of a $100,000 degree and the director straight-up, to my face, refused to give me more even though my degree program actually required me to have more acting credits than that). All of my acting training has come on-site -- actually on the stage, in the rehearsal room, doing shows. I'm basically self-taught because nobody thought I was good enough for them to bother actually trying to teach me.
Third -- costumes.
In dance, there is always a costume fee. Always. From the time you're a three-year-old in a costume-shop tutu sickling your feet to the time you're a college student taking professional-level classes, you always, always, pay for every single costume you wear -- whether or not you are actually allowed to keep it.
In theatre, I have only paid a costume fee once. I've had to supply parts of my own costume -- slips, blouses -- but even the pieces that come out of the company costume room are free for me to use as long as I am in that particular production.
Fourth -- mentally.
Theatre is (usually) quite good at meeting their actors where they're at mentally and emotionally (my college and their 'you MUST be happy all the time whether or not the script even actually portrays this character as happy' attitude notwithstanding). They require a lot, but they also give a lot of empathy. If your depression is acting up, they'll accept whatever you can do with gentle encouragement. If you've twisted an ankle, they are happy to let you sit to the side with an ice pack as long as you're paying attention to what your blocking will be. If you haven't eaten in three days because you haven't had time, they will cobble together all their collective snacks and feed you, and they'll probably all remember your allergies and texture issues too.
Regarding dance, Sydney Magruder Washington has actually described it much better than I could in her excellent post on ballet and mental illness. Dancers are constantly told to shut up and smile. Grin and bear it. The show must go on. No negativity allowed. Ever. At all. Not even a hint of a breath of anything less than sunshine and rainbows and unicorn poop. And if you can't do it, there is NO END to the emotional and verbal abuse you will get if you can't fit the artistic director's mould of perfection and happiness, even during barre when you're still trying to get your exhausted eyelids to stay open. In dance, if you're having a rough depression day, you get fired on the spot. And then the director blacklists you to anybody who will listen for the rest of your life.
Also, for reference -- one (1) counselling appointment can be over $200. Each. When I was in my most intense period of counselling (which lasted for about eight months), I was going once a week, but probably should have been doing twice a week.
Don't tell me this huge financial disparity is because nobody goes to the ballet anymore -- nobody goes to the theatre anymore either, and yet the theatres somehow manage to run without soaking their usually-not-well-off performers for money. And when can these performers work? All the job openings insist on evenings and weekends. When do performing arts companies rehearse? Evenings and weekends. We can work OR we can perform, not both. And if we choose the latter, we can't even afford to get proper dance shoes, let alone get our properly-clad foot in the door with an audition.
All I want to do is dance, and I HATE that I'm too poor to afford it.
19 October 2019
The Bottom (?) (Part II)
29 August 2019, 9.52pm.
I think I've hit bottom. Or at least I hope I have.
On the surface it doesn't look like I have. I'm not wearing rags and sleeping under a bridge. I'm not in a padded room in a hospital eating with plastic forks for my own protection. I'm still living in a decently nice place in a mostly nice city and have food in my cupboard and nice clothes in my closet.
The best way to say it is I have been spiraling since I moved here. The behaviour I described in this post was not limited to that week or even that month. It has characterised my entire time here. If it wasn't for one person (a friend of mine from my most recent show), I would literally have starved to death in the lap of luxury -- starved by my own volition. I had no reason to live and as such I had no reason to eat, so I didn't. I lived literally on Mini-Wheats, and that only because this friend insisted I eat something and that was the only thing I had the energy to make.
My last year at college (this past year) was easy academically (I only had three or four classes over two semesters), but it almost (and may still) broke me mentally. The professors and directors started giving me the cold shoulder and a couple of them started outright telling me I wasn't trying hard enough and that I would never be good enough to be an artist. Even though the school focused primarily on vocal development and had basically zero dance program to speak of, the director (who spent a total of five years in dance and has never taught it) appeared to make it his personal mission to remind me that my body is just not built to be flexible and to tell me constantly that because of that one fact and that one fact alone that I would never, ever be a decent performing artist and nobody would want anything to do with me -- full stop.
You can only hear that for so long before you start to believe it. Especially when this person is a mentor to you, and especially when the second-in-command in the program wholeheartedly agrees with him, and especially when there are no other influences telling you otherwise because 'your director knows best.'
Eventually he stopped having to say it (though he didn't actually stop saying it) -- the voice recorder in my brain had his voice on permanent file, playing back and rewinding and repeating the recording 24/7. By the time I graduated in April, I was already well into the self-starvation pattern. If I couldn't be a performing artist -- and he told me, clearly and repeatedly, that I couldn't -- then I didn't want to live. I had three other shows lined up, so a quick, violent suicide was not an option, but a slow degenerative spiral would be perfect. I could fade out shortly after the last show. It would be a fitting, sad, poetic, ending to a sad, moderately poetic life.
It got to the point where I couldn't even practice dance -- even for fun, even for my own choreography that nobody would ever see -- without hearing his voice in my head, telling me I would never be good enough. It was deafening, and it was infinitely heavier than my increasingly-fragile body could bear. I could hardly stand up, let alone lift the weight of his words off my heart long enough to lace up my tap shoes. There was no way I could practice on my own, and there was no way I could afford classes to push me to actually try.
So I accepted my fate -- I stopped dancing. I started telling people I 'used to' dance. I stopped listening to music, stopped seeing the dances, stopped singing, stopped dreaming.
At the same time, it seemed that my dire financial situation was about to turn a corner. I actually managed to land a job -- delivering the morning paper six days a week. However, about a month into the job, I had already been sexually harassed by a superior, taken three sick days (unrelated to the harassment), called a mental health help line because I felt so trapped, had to start a stronger asthma medication because my asthma worsened so much with the disturbed sleep schedule, and figured out I was only making $10.50 a night for my trouble. Minimum wage in Alberta is $15 an hour, and I was only making $10.50 for three hours of work, plus I was putting in $20 of gas in my vehicle every night. I was paying more than I was making.
The idea had been to deliver papers until I got another job, and I had been looking, but the paper-delivery job had drained so much out of me that I was spending fourteen hours a day in bed and still literally falling asleep on the job every single night. I hadn't found a better job, but I put in my two weeks' notice. I was going to end up in the hospital if I didn't.
I think I've hit bottom. Or at least I hope I have.
On the surface it doesn't look like I have. I'm not wearing rags and sleeping under a bridge. I'm not in a padded room in a hospital eating with plastic forks for my own protection. I'm still living in a decently nice place in a mostly nice city and have food in my cupboard and nice clothes in my closet.
The best way to say it is I have been spiraling since I moved here. The behaviour I described in this post was not limited to that week or even that month. It has characterised my entire time here. If it wasn't for one person (a friend of mine from my most recent show), I would literally have starved to death in the lap of luxury -- starved by my own volition. I had no reason to live and as such I had no reason to eat, so I didn't. I lived literally on Mini-Wheats, and that only because this friend insisted I eat something and that was the only thing I had the energy to make.
My last year at college (this past year) was easy academically (I only had three or four classes over two semesters), but it almost (and may still) broke me mentally. The professors and directors started giving me the cold shoulder and a couple of them started outright telling me I wasn't trying hard enough and that I would never be good enough to be an artist. Even though the school focused primarily on vocal development and had basically zero dance program to speak of, the director (who spent a total of five years in dance and has never taught it) appeared to make it his personal mission to remind me that my body is just not built to be flexible and to tell me constantly that because of that one fact and that one fact alone that I would never, ever be a decent performing artist and nobody would want anything to do with me -- full stop.
You can only hear that for so long before you start to believe it. Especially when this person is a mentor to you, and especially when the second-in-command in the program wholeheartedly agrees with him, and especially when there are no other influences telling you otherwise because 'your director knows best.'
Eventually he stopped having to say it (though he didn't actually stop saying it) -- the voice recorder in my brain had his voice on permanent file, playing back and rewinding and repeating the recording 24/7. By the time I graduated in April, I was already well into the self-starvation pattern. If I couldn't be a performing artist -- and he told me, clearly and repeatedly, that I couldn't -- then I didn't want to live. I had three other shows lined up, so a quick, violent suicide was not an option, but a slow degenerative spiral would be perfect. I could fade out shortly after the last show. It would be a fitting, sad, poetic, ending to a sad, moderately poetic life.
It got to the point where I couldn't even practice dance -- even for fun, even for my own choreography that nobody would ever see -- without hearing his voice in my head, telling me I would never be good enough. It was deafening, and it was infinitely heavier than my increasingly-fragile body could bear. I could hardly stand up, let alone lift the weight of his words off my heart long enough to lace up my tap shoes. There was no way I could practice on my own, and there was no way I could afford classes to push me to actually try.
So I accepted my fate -- I stopped dancing. I started telling people I 'used to' dance. I stopped listening to music, stopped seeing the dances, stopped singing, stopped dreaming.
At the same time, it seemed that my dire financial situation was about to turn a corner. I actually managed to land a job -- delivering the morning paper six days a week. However, about a month into the job, I had already been sexually harassed by a superior, taken three sick days (unrelated to the harassment), called a mental health help line because I felt so trapped, had to start a stronger asthma medication because my asthma worsened so much with the disturbed sleep schedule, and figured out I was only making $10.50 a night for my trouble. Minimum wage in Alberta is $15 an hour, and I was only making $10.50 for three hours of work, plus I was putting in $20 of gas in my vehicle every night. I was paying more than I was making.
The idea had been to deliver papers until I got another job, and I had been looking, but the paper-delivery job had drained so much out of me that I was spending fourteen hours a day in bed and still literally falling asleep on the job every single night. I hadn't found a better job, but I put in my two weeks' notice. I was going to end up in the hospital if I didn't.
03 October 2019
Numbness and Rebuilding (Part I)
28 July 2019, 2.01am.
I've just begun the process of rebuilding... rebuilding everything.
In June I completely uprooted and moved to a city I'd only seen three or four times in my entire life. I had $200, no job, and only one show lined up. As alluded to on this blog, I was already not in a great place mentally or physically (college had sapped the last of my strength), and the anonymity of the unfamiliar big city gave me the chance to do what I'd always wanted -- to spiral.
I deliberately put on a brave face at rehearsal. I did more acting backstage than I ever did onstage for that show. Because I knew if anybody knew I was about to give up, they would try to fix me for about two weeks (a month at best) and then turn their backs on me, most likely with a cutting tirade about how I was 'too much' and 'not trying hard enough.' I already knew all that, I didn't need to hear it again. I've had this happen so many times I have the script memorised, even though the other person always thinks it's improv. Better to not even start the show.
By the last weekend of the show, I had almost completely stopped eating. The cooler I brought to the campground was mostly just a prop for the show of 'I'm fine.' I did a three-hour performance on a pizza pop and a container of yogurt -- as in, that was all I had eaten all day. At the cast party after the final performance one of my castmates literally had to carry me to the food line because I was so depleted I couldn't stand on my own. I wanted to tell someone but I knew no-one would believe me because I've struggled with this so publicly and I knew I was beyond help because of the sheer severity and stubbornness of my condition. It was my last show anyway, with no plans or hopes of any others on the horizon... this was the best way to go out. Just fade away into obscurity, like so many artists before me. Literally, physically, fade out. It was better than burning alive. And it was better than suffocating.
The only person I had even sort-of opened up to on that cast was that castmate who carried me to the front of the food line. Even he didn't know the whole story, but he knew I had a history of depression and he had figured out that I hadn't been eating. For two weeks -- probably longer -- he texted me every day, multiple times a day, insisting that I eat something. I literally only ate one bowl of cereal each day for at least a week, even in the face of his insistence. I was so depleted that I couldn't have made anything more substantial even if I had wanted to.
At some point, for some reason, I decided to rebuild my tap repertoire... it had deteriorated significantly since I had essentially stopped practicing in February. I made up a schedule, holding myself to only half an hour each day, just slowly and calmly learning a piece I had choreographed about a month and a half before. I gave myself two weeks to learn it. Just that, nothing else. No rush. No pressure. Just learning the dance.
The first (spoilers: only) day wasn't hard on my body so much as it was hard on my mind. The last time I had practiced dance consistently was at a time when I was trying desperately to prove myself, as my program director and I were clashing with greater frequency over my lack of ability and whether or not I was actually trying, as my carefully-laid plans to move to Regina and pursue my career there crumbled around me. I had largely forgotten all that -- not 'gotten over' or 'worked through,' forgotten... numbed by the ache in my hollow stomach and the fog clouding my undernourished brain. Dancing again brought all those old feelings back, all that barely-cold criticism, all that still-smouldering self-hatred.
But the numbness didn't completely go away. And I was able to hold onto that numbness through that practice session. The venom of the words that so many have spoken to me didn't bite anymore. The sharp sting wasn't gone, but it was dulled. I had accepted my fate of literally physically fading into nothing and as such I had nothing to prove anymore.
'You'll never be good enough. You don't try hard enough.'
Yeah, I know. So what does it matter to you that I'm stretching today?
The overwhelming numbness drowned out the answer.
I've just begun the process of rebuilding... rebuilding everything.
In June I completely uprooted and moved to a city I'd only seen three or four times in my entire life. I had $200, no job, and only one show lined up. As alluded to on this blog, I was already not in a great place mentally or physically (college had sapped the last of my strength), and the anonymity of the unfamiliar big city gave me the chance to do what I'd always wanted -- to spiral.
I deliberately put on a brave face at rehearsal. I did more acting backstage than I ever did onstage for that show. Because I knew if anybody knew I was about to give up, they would try to fix me for about two weeks (a month at best) and then turn their backs on me, most likely with a cutting tirade about how I was 'too much' and 'not trying hard enough.' I already knew all that, I didn't need to hear it again. I've had this happen so many times I have the script memorised, even though the other person always thinks it's improv. Better to not even start the show.
By the last weekend of the show, I had almost completely stopped eating. The cooler I brought to the campground was mostly just a prop for the show of 'I'm fine.' I did a three-hour performance on a pizza pop and a container of yogurt -- as in, that was all I had eaten all day. At the cast party after the final performance one of my castmates literally had to carry me to the food line because I was so depleted I couldn't stand on my own. I wanted to tell someone but I knew no-one would believe me because I've struggled with this so publicly and I knew I was beyond help because of the sheer severity and stubbornness of my condition. It was my last show anyway, with no plans or hopes of any others on the horizon... this was the best way to go out. Just fade away into obscurity, like so many artists before me. Literally, physically, fade out. It was better than burning alive. And it was better than suffocating.
The only person I had even sort-of opened up to on that cast was that castmate who carried me to the front of the food line. Even he didn't know the whole story, but he knew I had a history of depression and he had figured out that I hadn't been eating. For two weeks -- probably longer -- he texted me every day, multiple times a day, insisting that I eat something. I literally only ate one bowl of cereal each day for at least a week, even in the face of his insistence. I was so depleted that I couldn't have made anything more substantial even if I had wanted to.
At some point, for some reason, I decided to rebuild my tap repertoire... it had deteriorated significantly since I had essentially stopped practicing in February. I made up a schedule, holding myself to only half an hour each day, just slowly and calmly learning a piece I had choreographed about a month and a half before. I gave myself two weeks to learn it. Just that, nothing else. No rush. No pressure. Just learning the dance.
The first (spoilers: only) day wasn't hard on my body so much as it was hard on my mind. The last time I had practiced dance consistently was at a time when I was trying desperately to prove myself, as my program director and I were clashing with greater frequency over my lack of ability and whether or not I was actually trying, as my carefully-laid plans to move to Regina and pursue my career there crumbled around me. I had largely forgotten all that -- not 'gotten over' or 'worked through,' forgotten... numbed by the ache in my hollow stomach and the fog clouding my undernourished brain. Dancing again brought all those old feelings back, all that barely-cold criticism, all that still-smouldering self-hatred.
But the numbness didn't completely go away. And I was able to hold onto that numbness through that practice session. The venom of the words that so many have spoken to me didn't bite anymore. The sharp sting wasn't gone, but it was dulled. I had accepted my fate of literally physically fading into nothing and as such I had nothing to prove anymore.
'You'll never be good enough. You don't try hard enough.'
Yeah, I know. So what does it matter to you that I'm stretching today?
The overwhelming numbness drowned out the answer.
12 August 2019
Quality Time
In order to understand this post, you'll have to be familiar with the five love languages. You don't need to take the quiz if you don't want to, just be familiar with the five different kinds.
Read the overview? Good.
I am a STRONG quality-time, with a healthy helping of words of affirmation. I scored a perfect zero in acts of service (which explains a lot for those who know me in real life).
On one hand, quality time is the easiest. It requires no money (gifts), very little prep (gifts), not a lot of effort (acts of service), no eloquence (words of affirmation), and no physical contact. Certainly all of these can go into loving a quality time person, but they're by no means requirements. Literally all you have to do is sit with us and talk/listen. Honestly one of my favourite things to do with my college friends was to go to the grocery store. Nothing crazy, nothing fancy, nothing expensive. Let's just get in the car and drive to your chiropractor appointment and the car wash together. We don't even need to get coffee. All I want in my life is to spend time sitting in the same room (or vehicle) as you, with more than 60% of your undivided attention (if you're scrolling through your phone or watching a movie, that absolutely DOES NOT count and in fact actively makes me feel even more unloved because you have a beautiful chance to share a few moments with me as another human and you're deciding that your Instagram is more important).
But on the other hand, quality time is the hardest. You can't just toss us a hug or a pat on the back and we're good for another three months. You can't take out the trash and expect us to suddenly be okay. You can't buy our satisfaction with gifts and you can't smooth over a wound with some nice words. The very thing that makes us easy is the thing that makes us impossibly difficult.
Every other love language can have their needs satisfied in thirty seconds or less. But not quality time. We are not satisfied with a quick 'hi love you bye.' We are time sucks. We are the black hole, the awful vortex in your busy lives that you avoid because you have two meetings and a birthday party and an office dinner and a dance lesson and rehearsal and three classes and you don't have any energy left to give to us, let alone the four or five hours we would prefer -- no, need -- to have from you. God help the parents of the quality time children. You barely have time for yourselves, let alone for us.
And we know that. We know we ask a lot. I cannot even begin to communicate the depth of my guilt that I need you so much and that I interfere with your busy life so much. You have no idea how much I wish I could be as easily satisfied as everyone else. I can't even explain how much I pretend I'm fine or I pretend I'm satisfied with the two-second greeting you give us when everything within me screams for you, for somebody, for anybody, to just spend an afternoon with me, with no limit and no other agenda. I know I'm expected to be okay on my own and so often I pretend that I am, but I'm really not. The need in my soul is vast, and deep, and so incongruent with how our society operates. Nobody knows HOW to just sit and co-exist with another person anymore. We underscore our days with Netflix and Skype meetings and the six o'clock news and sports and Snapchat and Bejeweled knockoffs and the ever-buzzing phone and your quality time friends and family quietly shrivel into dust in the corner, edged out of your lives by f*cking pixels on a screen. In this world of opportunity and money and privilege, the one thing nobody has to give, the one thing nobody can earn, the one thing that nobody can deposit in a savings account for a rainy day is time.
And sometimes I hate that something so impossible is often the literal only thing that I really want from you.
Read the overview? Good.
I am a STRONG quality-time, with a healthy helping of words of affirmation. I scored a perfect zero in acts of service (which explains a lot for those who know me in real life).
On one hand, quality time is the easiest. It requires no money (gifts), very little prep (gifts), not a lot of effort (acts of service), no eloquence (words of affirmation), and no physical contact. Certainly all of these can go into loving a quality time person, but they're by no means requirements. Literally all you have to do is sit with us and talk/listen. Honestly one of my favourite things to do with my college friends was to go to the grocery store. Nothing crazy, nothing fancy, nothing expensive. Let's just get in the car and drive to your chiropractor appointment and the car wash together. We don't even need to get coffee. All I want in my life is to spend time sitting in the same room (or vehicle) as you, with more than 60% of your undivided attention (if you're scrolling through your phone or watching a movie, that absolutely DOES NOT count and in fact actively makes me feel even more unloved because you have a beautiful chance to share a few moments with me as another human and you're deciding that your Instagram is more important).
But on the other hand, quality time is the hardest. You can't just toss us a hug or a pat on the back and we're good for another three months. You can't take out the trash and expect us to suddenly be okay. You can't buy our satisfaction with gifts and you can't smooth over a wound with some nice words. The very thing that makes us easy is the thing that makes us impossibly difficult.
Every other love language can have their needs satisfied in thirty seconds or less. But not quality time. We are not satisfied with a quick 'hi love you bye.' We are time sucks. We are the black hole, the awful vortex in your busy lives that you avoid because you have two meetings and a birthday party and an office dinner and a dance lesson and rehearsal and three classes and you don't have any energy left to give to us, let alone the four or five hours we would prefer -- no, need -- to have from you. God help the parents of the quality time children. You barely have time for yourselves, let alone for us.
And we know that. We know we ask a lot. I cannot even begin to communicate the depth of my guilt that I need you so much and that I interfere with your busy life so much. You have no idea how much I wish I could be as easily satisfied as everyone else. I can't even explain how much I pretend I'm fine or I pretend I'm satisfied with the two-second greeting you give us when everything within me screams for you, for somebody, for anybody, to just spend an afternoon with me, with no limit and no other agenda. I know I'm expected to be okay on my own and so often I pretend that I am, but I'm really not. The need in my soul is vast, and deep, and so incongruent with how our society operates. Nobody knows HOW to just sit and co-exist with another person anymore. We underscore our days with Netflix and Skype meetings and the six o'clock news and sports and Snapchat and Bejeweled knockoffs and the ever-buzzing phone and your quality time friends and family quietly shrivel into dust in the corner, edged out of your lives by f*cking pixels on a screen. In this world of opportunity and money and privilege, the one thing nobody has to give, the one thing nobody can earn, the one thing that nobody can deposit in a savings account for a rainy day is time.
And sometimes I hate that something so impossible is often the literal only thing that I really want from you.
30 July 2019
The Birth of the Curse
I'l just get this out of the way: I hate my birthday.
Not because I'm another year older and closer to death. I hate my actual birth date -- 2 August.
In Canada, the first Monday is August is a statutory holiday. I don't know why they felt this was necessary -- the month of August literally is holiday unless you're one of the lucky few who have actually managed to land any kind of full-time job in this economy. Yours truly was literally born on that God-forsaken Monday. To be born on a holiday Monday -- especially in the summer, and especially the last one of the summer -- is a curse straight from the lips of Satan himself.
Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to plan any kind of birthday party when literally everyone goes camping in the mountains or goes to the lake on that weekend? There are 51 other weekends every year, but all the vacations magically converge on THAT weekend -- the weekend of my birthday.
These circumstances literally incited my lifelong battle with depression. My own birthday doomed me. I was sunk from my first breath.
I was nine, going on ten. My birthday was coming up and I had carefully made up invitations and sent them out WAY in advance -- having learned in the previous three or four years that people apparently make plans for my birthday weekend in April sometime. But it was now late July and the RSVP calls were rolling in -- 'Sorry, Lindsay can't make it, we're going to the lake that weekend,' 'Sorry, Katie's camping with her dad that weekend,' 'Sorry, Brittany can't come -- we're all going to Disneyland that weekend...'
I was with my dad in his workshop when my mother came out and relayed yet another message like this -- my best friend couldn't come. And it was kind of the last straw. I had invited probably about a dozen people, and now probably about ten of them had already backed out. I had long been reduced to inviting even my much-younger and significantly more annoying cousins just so I would be with someone on my birthday.
I excused myself and headed back to the house to process. How could my best friend be busy? She knew my birthday. It happened every year on the same day. How do you not start to remember 'oh yeah, my best friend's birthday is that day, don't book anything'? This was my best friend. I had never missed her birthday party. Why then did she and her family seem to think it was okay to miss mine?
I was walking up the steps to the back door of our house when a solution presented itself to my nine-year-old brain: nobody likes you. Nobody wants you around. And that's why they're making all these excuses. They didn't forget -- they just don't want to come.
And suddenly everything made sense.
The problem was not the date, the problem was me. I was annoying and stupid and nobody liked me.
The knowledge was enlightening. Suddenly my entire life made sense -- my mother's seemingly unprovoked rages at me, my dance teacher's constant needling comments at me about how I wasn't good enough, the fact that every social gathering I ever tried to plan flopped spectacularly, the fact that literally nobody ever talked to me unless forced to.
It was because nobody liked me. It was because there was something wrong with me.
That thought opened up a whole new world of explanation -- a Pandora's box that not only could I not shut, I didn't want to because I would rather know that I was worthless than live under a delusion. I would rather have known the truth -- the truth that nobody wanted me around and would do whatever it took to avoid me. That thought still pervades literally everything I do and everything I think. I know nothing else.
I still had one faint hope -- that when I was an adult and my friends were all more in control of their work schedules, they would know to keep that day (or at least that weekend) free. They would remember that that was my birthday and maybe my adult friends would somehow be able to love me enough to not want to back out of whatever I might plan.
But now I am an adult. I'm alone in a city with very few (and somewhat tenuous) connections. I can't go visit my family because I work two days in a row and can't make the trip. My best friend is on vacation -- her family plans the same stupid trip to the mountains ON MY BIRTHDAY every single stupid year, despite knowing that that's my birthday. I had made plans with another friend to spend the day together on my birthday -- nothing fancy, just literally being in each other's presence -- and that friend just found out today that there's a family event that he can't back out of... on that day.
My one birthday wish -- to spend my birthday with people who care about me. It's not about the event. It's not about the gifts. It's not about the party or the food or the beverages. It's about being with people I love. That's all I want. It's so simple, but it's the one thing I can apparently never have.
Nobody should have to be alone on their birthday. And yet that's my constant reality.
Not because I'm another year older and closer to death. I hate my actual birth date -- 2 August.
In Canada, the first Monday is August is a statutory holiday. I don't know why they felt this was necessary -- the month of August literally is holiday unless you're one of the lucky few who have actually managed to land any kind of full-time job in this economy. Yours truly was literally born on that God-forsaken Monday. To be born on a holiday Monday -- especially in the summer, and especially the last one of the summer -- is a curse straight from the lips of Satan himself.
Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to plan any kind of birthday party when literally everyone goes camping in the mountains or goes to the lake on that weekend? There are 51 other weekends every year, but all the vacations magically converge on THAT weekend -- the weekend of my birthday.
These circumstances literally incited my lifelong battle with depression. My own birthday doomed me. I was sunk from my first breath.
I was nine, going on ten. My birthday was coming up and I had carefully made up invitations and sent them out WAY in advance -- having learned in the previous three or four years that people apparently make plans for my birthday weekend in April sometime. But it was now late July and the RSVP calls were rolling in -- 'Sorry, Lindsay can't make it, we're going to the lake that weekend,' 'Sorry, Katie's camping with her dad that weekend,' 'Sorry, Brittany can't come -- we're all going to Disneyland that weekend...'
I was with my dad in his workshop when my mother came out and relayed yet another message like this -- my best friend couldn't come. And it was kind of the last straw. I had invited probably about a dozen people, and now probably about ten of them had already backed out. I had long been reduced to inviting even my much-younger and significantly more annoying cousins just so I would be with someone on my birthday.
I excused myself and headed back to the house to process. How could my best friend be busy? She knew my birthday. It happened every year on the same day. How do you not start to remember 'oh yeah, my best friend's birthday is that day, don't book anything'? This was my best friend. I had never missed her birthday party. Why then did she and her family seem to think it was okay to miss mine?
I was walking up the steps to the back door of our house when a solution presented itself to my nine-year-old brain: nobody likes you. Nobody wants you around. And that's why they're making all these excuses. They didn't forget -- they just don't want to come.
And suddenly everything made sense.
The problem was not the date, the problem was me. I was annoying and stupid and nobody liked me.
The knowledge was enlightening. Suddenly my entire life made sense -- my mother's seemingly unprovoked rages at me, my dance teacher's constant needling comments at me about how I wasn't good enough, the fact that every social gathering I ever tried to plan flopped spectacularly, the fact that literally nobody ever talked to me unless forced to.
It was because nobody liked me. It was because there was something wrong with me.
That thought opened up a whole new world of explanation -- a Pandora's box that not only could I not shut, I didn't want to because I would rather know that I was worthless than live under a delusion. I would rather have known the truth -- the truth that nobody wanted me around and would do whatever it took to avoid me. That thought still pervades literally everything I do and everything I think. I know nothing else.
I still had one faint hope -- that when I was an adult and my friends were all more in control of their work schedules, they would know to keep that day (or at least that weekend) free. They would remember that that was my birthday and maybe my adult friends would somehow be able to love me enough to not want to back out of whatever I might plan.
But now I am an adult. I'm alone in a city with very few (and somewhat tenuous) connections. I can't go visit my family because I work two days in a row and can't make the trip. My best friend is on vacation -- her family plans the same stupid trip to the mountains ON MY BIRTHDAY every single stupid year, despite knowing that that's my birthday. I had made plans with another friend to spend the day together on my birthday -- nothing fancy, just literally being in each other's presence -- and that friend just found out today that there's a family event that he can't back out of... on that day.
My one birthday wish -- to spend my birthday with people who care about me. It's not about the event. It's not about the gifts. It's not about the party or the food or the beverages. It's about being with people I love. That's all I want. It's so simple, but it's the one thing I can apparently never have.
Nobody should have to be alone on their birthday. And yet that's my constant reality.
25 July 2019
The Voice in My Head
Around February I started letting my dance practice routine slip. At first it was busyness, then sickness, then both... then I moved away and couldn't access the studio anymore, and the practice pretty well ceased entirely. There have been a couple of one-off practices over the past few months, but there was no consistency. My motivation was completely gone -- depression and a general sense of purposelessness had eaten it all.
Today I hit the wood for the first time in a while. Nothing spectacular -- some warm-up and improv, some learning (trying to add a new piece into the rep), quite a lot of troubleshooting (where IS my weight after a turning cramp roll?).
Then the stretch session.
Back in January, I had finally gotten my (left front) splits down. This was the culmination of literally YEARS of work and pushing and stretching, often multiple stretch sessions a day. I have footage from May of me in the splits, and that was probably honestly the last time I did them. I knew I had probably lost them, but I also now knew that they were attainable. I did my usual stretches that I had been doing at the beginning of the year, mentally pre-accepting the likelihood that I would not have the splits today.
And it's funny -- the entire time I was stretching, it took me back to that time. And I heard the voice of my program director, telling me I wasn't good enough, nagging me to 'just be more flexible' -- as if that was up to my willpower rather than my horribly short muscles -- all of it, the things I had almost managed to forget, racing back in around me as I stretched, ringing and echoing in my ears as if he had just said it this morning. I had already accepted that I wouldn't have the splits today, but still his voice prattled through my head, all about how I would never be good enough. Not because I lacked grace, or skill, or discipline, or artistry, or ballon, or experience, because I have all of those things (at least on some level), but purely and only because I didn't have a 180 extension. And that was all he could see and all he could talk about, and by extension that became all I could see and all I could think about.
And even now, trying to stretch in order to better myself, because I want to stretch, it just took me back to that time where his voice screamed through my brain about how I wasn't good enough and I never would be and it exhausted me all over again, even though I've graduated, even though I don't have to answer to him anymore, even though I'm not even in the same province anymore. I still carry his voice with me, embedded in my head. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't -- practice, that is. If I practice, I'm not trying hard enough and I'm not good enough. If I don't practice -- well, then I'm lazy and am still not trying hard enough.
I'm too tired to even be angry anymore. I spent so much energy trying to please him, trying to find the magic bullet to instant flexibility, trying to be good enough to at least get him off my case. It used up my last reserves of energy and willpower and motivation. There's nothing left. I gave it all to this formidable man who could not, would not be pleased with my absolute best efforts. It's all burned away, a flash in the pan. And here I am sitting on the couch, having eaten only three meals in the past week because not only do I not have motivation to dance, I don't have motivation for anything. It's all been used up.
I know it's possible to retrain my brain to think on a different line, to hear a different voice when I'm stretching besides his saccharine sweet, syrupy voice telling me very nicely that I would never be any good at anything if I couldn't do the splits, but that will take a Herculean amount of effort and I don't even have the energy to pour myself a bowl of cereal half the time, let alone retrain an entire thought pattern during an already physically demanding activity.
Nobody here in Alberta knows him. He has little, if any, influence with anyone here. Nobody here knows he thought I was the worst performer he'd ever had in his department, and honestly nobody would care that he thought that because what he thought doesn't matter to them. I have the chance to prove myself here on my own merits, with or without his f*cking approval.
But his voice is in my head, and it's sabotaging my own merits.
And no, I didn't have the splits today.
17 July 2019
Update... The Big Pond
Update on living in Alberta again...
It's beautiful. But it's also probably been the darkest, most difficult time of my life so far.
It's MUCH harder even to get an audition here. I've responded to quite a few audition calls and not even been invited to the auditions. I've landed more job interviews than auditions (and given how the job hunt has been going, that's saying something).
The original plan, back in April, was to stay in Saskatchewan (probably Regina) for a year or two, for more experience (which would hopefully eventually translate into actual ability...). It's a relatively small theatrical pond, sure, but I'm also a pretty small fish. It would have been a good place to learn and grow and get a chance to hone my skills -- at least in Regina, some theatres did like my work enough to at least stick me in ensemble. In the past year especially I did a huge amount of hustling in Regina because that was where I expected to stay, so that was where I made my connections.
Instead, I've now ended up in Calgary, which is a significantly bigger (and therefore more competitive) pond, and I have absolutely zero connections here. In Regina I at least knew a bunch of theatre people -- I had a network. Here I have literally nothing. Most of the people in my current show here, while very nice and generally good at what they do, aren't in the theatre scene at all outside of that one show once a year, so they can't really help me.
I'm trying to look at it as a 'sink or swim' situation. I have to get my skills up to par -- there is no other option if I want to survive. I can't grow slowly and steadily now, I have to grow in leaps and bounds. I have to level up. I'm not quite sure how without practice (you know... actually doing shows), but I'm going to have to figure out a way. Preferably an inexpensive way -- as I hinted above, the job-hunt/financial situation is nothing less than terrifying, on a visceral level. I'm in a heightened state of stress and tension 24/7 because I am literally one month away from living on the street. I haven't truly relaxed, even physically, in... I don't even know how long. (Probably about a year -- last summer, before school kicked in again.) The only silver lining about being under this level of stress for so long is that I have no appetite so at least I'm saving money on food.
It's beautiful. But it's also probably been the darkest, most difficult time of my life so far.
It's MUCH harder even to get an audition here. I've responded to quite a few audition calls and not even been invited to the auditions. I've landed more job interviews than auditions (and given how the job hunt has been going, that's saying something).
The original plan, back in April, was to stay in Saskatchewan (probably Regina) for a year or two, for more experience (which would hopefully eventually translate into actual ability...). It's a relatively small theatrical pond, sure, but I'm also a pretty small fish. It would have been a good place to learn and grow and get a chance to hone my skills -- at least in Regina, some theatres did like my work enough to at least stick me in ensemble. In the past year especially I did a huge amount of hustling in Regina because that was where I expected to stay, so that was where I made my connections.
Instead, I've now ended up in Calgary, which is a significantly bigger (and therefore more competitive) pond, and I have absolutely zero connections here. In Regina I at least knew a bunch of theatre people -- I had a network. Here I have literally nothing. Most of the people in my current show here, while very nice and generally good at what they do, aren't in the theatre scene at all outside of that one show once a year, so they can't really help me.
I'm trying to look at it as a 'sink or swim' situation. I have to get my skills up to par -- there is no other option if I want to survive. I can't grow slowly and steadily now, I have to grow in leaps and bounds. I have to level up. I'm not quite sure how without practice (you know... actually doing shows), but I'm going to have to figure out a way. Preferably an inexpensive way -- as I hinted above, the job-hunt/financial situation is nothing less than terrifying, on a visceral level. I'm in a heightened state of stress and tension 24/7 because I am literally one month away from living on the street. I haven't truly relaxed, even physically, in... I don't even know how long. (Probably about a year -- last summer, before school kicked in again.) The only silver lining about being under this level of stress for so long is that I have no appetite so at least I'm saving money on food.
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