Semi-Annual Update

Thought I'd do an update on my goals for 2022. The National Choreography Month update is here, but for the rest, read on.

- 14 dances in 12 months.

Just finished the fourteenth dance yesterday, 1 July. My subgoal of this was to choreograph at least sixteen counts every single day this year. So far the streak is unbroken -- yesterday brought it up to 182 days. I'm currently trying to decide what song to do next. I still plan on choreographing sixteen or more counts every day this year, and now my motivation is to see just how much choreography I can do in a year at that pace. Sixteen counts is a challenge (but not an insurmountable one) for choreographing tap dance, and it's a breeze for a moderate-tempo ballet piece. I seem to be alternating between choreographing ballet and tap, which is keeping the challenge level up but also balancing it with some-lower brainpower times. I think (hope) it's keeping me from burning out. At least, it seems to be working so far.

- Publish the Patreon.

I had a launch date set and everything. I had even cleared it with my husband's caseworker, which I thought was going to be the worst part. And suddenly I wondered if I was ready... if I could justify asking people for money for something I have not properly done in years, if I could make it worth their money. I am now focusing on re-building who I am as a producer and artist, strengthening my work so they can feel confident that I and my work are things worth investing in, especially with the cost of living as high as it is.

I'm doing that by forging on with producing the dance film I want to do this summer. I am also currently performing in an internationally-known show, so I've been doing promotional posts for that on my social media, reminding people that I am back and I am still doing this.

I'm also praying a lot about this. My dad and I had a long talk when I last visited my parents about God's timing, and this has been a big factor in my decision to hold off on this for now. I'm not convinced I'm in God's timing if I publish the Patreon now. It may still work out, but perhaps not as well as if I wait -- however counterintuitively -- for Him. It's hard... I haven't listened to God in close to eight years, and I'm not sure I remember what He sounds like. I'm not quite sure if I'll know His voice when I hear it. I'm hoping He has somebody (who doesn't know I already have this set up) literally tell me I should publish a Patreon, otherwise I'm not sure I'll catch on.

- Take some dance classes.

In January, a well-known figure in the tap dance world (who I auditioned for an age ago and follow on Instagram) contacted me saying she was running a rep class right at my level and would I be interested? She was willing to work out a payment plan. So I got to participate in the class -- learned so much about both myself and the art form -- and have already registered and started paying for another class session with her (takes place later this summer). I would still love to audition for the ballet company in the closest city for the 2022-23 season, but the fees are quite high (I would use Patreon to cover this, but see the discussion above about God's timing).

- Make at least two dance films.

This was supposed to be done by the end of last month, but I chickened out. After the projected film date had passed, I contacted the dancer and asked if she was even still interested. She was, so I sent her the choreography and she's currently rehearsing it. My job is to develop my character's costume, buy a fill light, and pick a shoot day/location. I have a couple ideas for the second one, but I'm trying to really focus on this one first.

- Do a live performance of my choreography, somehow/somewhere.

This is kind of on the back burner for now. I would busk at the farmer's market, but that currently runs the same days as the show I'm in for the next month.

- Actually (re)learn some of my pieces. Make a rep-building schedule and stick to it.

Struggling with this one yet again, for the same reason. It's just not fun to re-learn old pieces (says ADHD). Haven't figured out how to make it fun yet. I've relearned Emotional Tourist and half of two other pieces in spite of myself though.

- Busk at the farmer's market.

See above. I NEED to learn rep for this to happen, but I just... can't. It's so frustrating.

- Do at least one theatre show.

I guess you already know how that one's going. This is my first full show since February 2020. It's been rough but mostly due to administrative issues. The actors are great, and the show itself presents beautifully. I'm proud to have my name attached to it.

- Continue posting on this blog.

A little disappointed here, but not overly. The lack of posting here is because I'm putting in so much work on choreography, performance, and writing. At least that time wasn't spent scrolling social media.

- Do NaNoWriMo again.

We'll see come November. I'd still like to do this. I'm thinking of some kind of space story, but I haven't figured one out yet. There's one in my 'story ideas' file, but I'm not sure that's the one I want to do yet.

- Publish a short story.

This is way on the back burner for now.

- Write a short story in German.

Also on the back burner. Still learning German, but I've taken the pressure of writing a story with it off myself for now.

- Actually finish a Kyrie revision.

Believe it or not, this might actually be the year. I am some 10k words deep into this thing (the farthest I have ever gotten), and have managed to put in at least a couple sentences of work almost every day since 30 April. Having a timeline of events have helped infinitely. (Also watching a good friend of mine publish her own book and wanting to have that experience is a good motivator right now too.)

- Be more intentional about reading the Bible and praying.

Currently in a dry spell here, but this was going decently well. I've found that walking to work is a good time for praying, so at least I pray a little on the days that I work. Still haven't figured something out for my days off though.

- Pick up an instrument.

Back burner. Mostly pending money.

- Save up a $1000 emergency fund.

Not quite halfway there.

- Make myself a sweater.

I think this might be a winter project. It's so hot here in the summers that the absolute last thing I want is a heavy sweater on my lap while I work on it.

- Make birthday presents for my siblings.

I am three siblings behind. One is in progress. One I have an idea for. And one I have no idea what to get her.

Overall, I'm proud of where I am, especially in terms of the daily choreography streak and the Kyrie revision. I'm happy with how I've prioritised this list -- there's nothing on the back burner that I regret putting there. Once this Kyrie draft is finished, I'll pull something off the back burner (maybe publishing a short story?) to replace it while I wait for beta reader feedback. That'll be a while yet. I am intentionally moving slowly with the rewrite so I don't fall into the 'quantity over quality' trap and have to rewrite the thing again.

Also, I think while writing this post I may have picked my next song to choreograph. Let the streak continue!

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?

If

It's now seven years since my cousin's sudden death. This is the first year that I haven't been a complete basket case the month of the anniversary.

That's not to say I've forgotten. In fact, the opposite. Her death has sunk so deeply into the fibres of my muscles and the neural pathways of my brain that in many ways, it's simply a part of my body now. The way I walk now would not be the same way I would walk at this age if had she not died that day. There is no separating me from that night because to take everything that her death affected out of me with some magic vacuum would inevitably take away sinews, bone, and blood. The very shape of my heart -- my blood-pumping organ -- would be altered.

I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm simply saying that that experience and me -- the person I am at the core of my being -- are inseparable. Even if my mind forgets one day, my body never will. Every cell of the past seven years has been built on that night.

What if she had not died that day?

With every passing day it becomes harder to imagine. I no longer remember what it was like to not feel that hollow ache of loss. I can't fathom what my faith would be like had my prayers for her life been answered. Perhaps I never would have turned my back. Perhaps I would still pray regularly. Perhaps I would still have friends and those in authority at college would not have given up on me. Perhaps my marriage would be better. Perhaps my in-laws would think I was nicer. Perhaps I would still be the inspiration I had wanted to be.

If she had lived... if she had lived, I wouldn't be so bitter and apathetic and numb now. People who tell you bitterness is a choice have not gone through the hell of loss, and if they have, they're lying. Bitterness is inevitable when everyone you love dies, when the few who live turn their backs on you after promising they would be there for you no matter what. Sure, the Bible says 'rejoice,' but even Jesus screamed on the cross, 'why have You forsaken me?'

If she had lived, I could be the happy person that everyone wants me to be. I wouldn't carry all this pain around with me, in the very marrow of my iron-stripped bones. No amount of counselling or therapy, no matter how specialised, will ever be able to suck her death out of the cells of my body. You could wipe my brain clean like a brand new hard drive, but my muscles will remember. My joints will remember. My heart will remember. My brain may not be able to tell you who, but my body will know that someone is dead who wasn't supposed to be. You can tell me it was her time all you want, but you're wrong. It's never time for a nine-year-old to die.

You can tell me it was Satan all you want... but God is sovereign even over Satan and He did nothing. Just let him waltz in and take her like a five-cent candy in the bowl at the bank. As if she was nothing and meant nothing. As if he (and I'm not sure if I mean God or Satan) thought we weren't going to notice.

If she hadn't died, I would never think of God like this.

Maybe this is what God meant when He said He would harden Pharoah's heart. I wish I could come back. I wish none of this had happened and I could love God again; I really do. I miss those days when everything was so clear. Difficult, but clear.

If she hadn't died, things would have been so much different... so much better. I could have been the person I should have been. I can't anymore. I can act like I am, but I'm not that wonderful person at my core anymore. And I wonder why I was spared when letting me live and her die only served to turn me into this emotional black hole.

Writing, Escape, and Control

Originally written 24 December 2021, 2.53am.

I started writing very young.

I took to the written word extremely quickly as a child. I was reading competently at age four and by the time I was eight I was attempting to write books of my own. I was constantly narrating the world in my mind as I watched events unfold, narrating as if I was narrating a book. Sometimes, it turned out, I was (though surprisingly few events in my novels have stemmed from real-life events).

When I was a young (and later an older) teenager, I holed up in my room, hiding from my mother's absolutely unpredictable rages and the awful words about any and all my minuscule failures rushing out of her mouth like swords to my battered soul, writing, on looseleaf, on scraps of schoolwork, on typewriters, on my beside table, on anything I could get my hands on. Writing and listening to music became the only two ways to drown out the horrible sounds of my later childhood and early teen years.

When I wrote, the world in my head dampened the sounds of the world where nobody cared and nobody listened. The aural effect of music filled in the gaps that writing couldn't. I stayed up late into the night and filled the silence with music -- music for enjoyment rather than to smother the awfulness -- and spun out dozens of alternate universes from a curious coalition of my brain and my fingers. At age fourteen I completed my first novel draft, and some seventeen more have followed suit since then.

I joined Facebook, then started this blog. My writing, heretofore a closely guarded secret, expanded onto platforms that people could read. The blog especially was a very raw and vulnerable place for me. Facebook, however, gave me a platform to hone skills I was weak on, such as succinctness (remember the 430-character limit?) and clarity. I had a moderately good run as a pseudo-comedy writer who simply spun everyday events into decently funny one-liners. As I aged and my mental health worsened and I started losing friends to depression, I slipped almost unconsciously into a storyteller/advocate style of writing. I told my own story with unflinching starkness, in hopes that the friends and family who read my vignettes would better understand and be better equipped to help their friends and family with depression. There are so many misconceptions surrounding mental illness in general and depression in particular, and I, as a writer on the inside of both, had a unique perspective -- and I thought maybe a sort of obligation -- to bring to the people. The act of writing about my experiences had the side benefit of helped me to clarify them and even to bring some modicum of healing to my now even-more-shipwrecked soul.

Then I met my husband. Or, more accurately, my in-laws.

Of course they were nice at first. They're still decently nice now, however, many wars were had on the topic of my Facebook posts.

To this day, I'm not sure what their issue is. There is a history of depression in the family, so it wasn't like they didn't understand. But essentially they forbade me from posting on Facebook. Not one single post about mental health was allowed. Not one iota of honesty about myself and my life was allowed. I fought this, tooth and nail. There were many screaming matches, and the wedding was nearly called off multiple times because I could not understand how they could say that they wanted me in their family, yet they wanted to chop off one of the very things that made me ME. Without writing, without honesty, I would not be the same person. That seemed to be exactly what they wanted.

Eventually, I gave in. I was just so tired of the screaming matches. I went back to writing on this blog (luckily I hadn't gotten to the point of telling them of its existence yet) because it was once again the only place I would write whatever I wanted to and not be torn to shreds for the next 4-5 business days.

In some ways, I regret that. I regret letting them control me like this. My husband is great, but his family is an absolutely impossible battlefield of land mines -- sorry, I mean unwritten expectations. The blog is a valuable outlet, but not writing as much as I used to makes me feel like I'm only half of a human being -- and a primarily-dead half-human being at that. I was finally beginning to come into myself as a communicator, and they casually stripped 25 years of writing, of ME, away from me like they were putting groceries away after running errands.

For as long as I can remember, crafting the written word has been a part of my life. And all it took were some overbearing in-laws to strip me of one of the three (3) things that has ever consistently brought me comfort over the course of this life filled with an almost-comical and certainly-unbelievable amount of death and misfortune.

They wonder now why I don't trust them. Why I don't talk. Why I come off as so rude, distant, and angry all the time. Nobody ever stops to think that that's what happens when you take away one of somebody's only coping mechanisms.

Pain And Choice

8 April 2022, 6.47pm.

I've lived my entire life being cut off by friends and relatives who tell me I'm 'too negative.'

Let's make a list of the things that make me 'negative,' shall we?

- 15ish years of childhood emotional abuse and manipulation by somebody in my household.

- 2004: only childhood friend moved two countries away and did not keep in touch.

- 5ish years of bullying and emotional abuse in junior/high school -- from Christians.

- 2009: first suicide attempt.

- 2014: aunt and uncle ugly-divorce.

- 2015: second aunt and uncle ugly-divorce.

- 2015: best friend dies. Found out through Facebook five days later. Unable to go to funeral due to distance and short notice.

- 2015: nine-year-old cousin dies.

- 2015: entire extended family implodes over some stupid financial dispute and aunt and uncle's divorce.

- 2016: grandfather dies. I was the only grandchild who didn't get to say goodbye.

- 2016: church gaslights and backstabs me.

- 2016: entire church leadership board tells me God can't love me because I'm 'too negative' and because I'm an artist.

- 2016: college best friend ghosts me. When asked, said I'm 'too personal' (whatever that even means).

- 2016: strung along and then ghosted by a guy I really liked.

- 2017: all my friends stop talking to me. Literally every single one of them.

- 2017: second suicide attempt.

- 2017: very good friend attempts suicide and is hospitalised for some time. All while I get told I'm being 'too needy' and 'too negative' when I share my struggle with similar things.

- 2018: strung along and dumped by a man.

- 2018: best dance friend dies suddenly.

- 2015-2019: bullied by EVERYONE at college for being 'too negative' over all these deaths (current tally: four in two years, plus extended family dissolving and church abuse concurrently).

- 2018: college program director who I admired and respected told me I wasn't trying hard enough despite knowing I was practicing 10 hours every DAY (60 unpaid hours training, tuition, and experience PER WEEK. For five years).

- 2019: eating disorder develops, third suicide attempt.

- 2018-19: voice teacher verbally abusing and gaslighting me because I improve so slowly.

- 2015-2020: unsuccessful job hunt. Applied to literally THOUSANDS of jobs across three provinces. Landed maybe three interviews and zero jobs.

- 2019: moved to a new city, landed a part-time job, was sexually harassed and stalked by my supervisor.

- 2020: two good friends die literally within 24 hours of each other.

- 2020: finally landed a job I loved. Lasted 30 days. Then Pandemic shut it down.

- 2020: in-laws refused to let me plan my own wedding; even resorting to screaming matches when I tried to insist on anything that I, the literal bride, wanted. Also they publicly dragged my father's name through the mud in an attempt to get their way (my father is probably the most honourable human being to walk the earth, next to Jesus).

- 2020: fourth suicide attempt.

- 2021: finally got into therapy, therapist told me I wasn't trying hard enough and that I was too stubborn and too sad.

- 2022: three good friends ghosted me. The only one to respond to my request for clarification said I was 'too much' for her.

- Present day: constantly screamed at by customers, gaslighted and lectured by my in-laws for existing, and told by people who are supposed to love me how stupid I am. Am saddled by unexpected debt in the thousands, rising cost of rent, and gas prices so high that I literally cannot afford to drive to my job, let alone visit my family several hours' drive away. I am not making enough at my full-time job to pay the bills and the debt.

I didn't choose any of this. Not one single thing on this list was something I chose or even had any say in.

You know where all of this pain went?

Nowhere.

It's all still there inside me. It does not shrink. It does not dissolve. It does not go away. Nearly thirty years of intolerable pain still teems in my soul, just below the surface. There are only distractions, never relief. And even distractions wear thin.

We are told to reach out when we are going through tough times. So that's what I did. But it turned out -- every single time -- that the amount and intensity of pain I was carrying exceeded the willingness of the people around me to help me.

Oh, they try to frame it as a them problem while subtly blaming me... 'you're too negative' is the honest version that some have been ballsy enough to actually say, but more often the phrase is more like 'I'm just in a fragile place right now and need to cut down on sources of stress in my life' or sometimes they just ghost me.

99% percent of these people -- ninety-nine percent -- had told me WITHIN THE PREVIOUS TWELVE MONTHS that it was okay not to be okay and that they would be there for me. And without fail, every single one of them has either outright abandoned me or severely distanced themselves from me.

Do you really think that this insane amount of pain is a choice? If you can't bear even the smallest amount of pain that I show you, how on earth do you expect me to bear the full weight of it by myself? Do you think I'm superhuman? News flash -- I'm not. Why do you think I reach out so relentlessly? Why do you think I put so much of it on others? Because I can't carry this anymore.

When this pain finally, mercifully kills me, know this -- not a single one of you do-gooders 'did the best you could.' You didn't do a damn thing. You left me to shoulder all this pain alone. You knew the pain I was in, and you left me alone to be crushed to death under the weight of it.

I did not choose any of this. And you lot only added to the burden.

Ten Years At The Edge

On 10 April 2012, I completed my first piece of choreography.

I had been choreographing in fits and starts for probably about a year and a half before that, and I had been seeing the dancers in my head since around 2001.

I've told the story on this blog about the catalyst that finally got a piece done. I had only just discovered Benesh Movement Notation as a tool for writing down the dances flooding my mind when I overheard my mother mocking my dream to my dad. The rage I felt fueled me to see through the task I set before myself -- namely, to complete choreography to the song Sing Your Freedom by White Heart. I hadn't put much thought into my song choice, but as I think back on it, that was probably a very fitting launchpad. After years of quietly bristling under my mother's authoritarian rule over my words, thoughts, attitude, and activities, I finally had the courage to do something that I wanted to do. She thought I was stupid, but I did it anyway. I still remember the thrill of realising I only had two more sets of eight to go, and then finishing the piece less than an hour later. I emerged that night with a fully-notated Benesh score (which I still have) and a renewed fire and passion for choreography which has yet to be snuffed out by the 'well-meaning advice' of those who claim to care about me.

Over the past ten years, I have been able to perform my choreography both on stage and on film. I've choreographed for musical theatre productions, fundraisers, talent shows, competitions, and short films. I had a piece place first in its category in (virtual) competition in summer 2020. I have been able to at least somewhat distill the pain of three MAJOR personal losses into highly emotional and touching dances that are highly praised by viewers. And to this day, whenever I hear music, I see dancers. They are my companions on long drives and late nights.

I write choreography not because I want to, but because I HAVE to. It's an almost irresistible impulse. There is no balance in the world if I'm not choreographing.

Ten years' worth of choreography -- some 1200 pages, set to roughly seven hours' worth of music.

While some of this has been scanned into the computer, put on backup drives, and (rarely) reprinted, every single thing I create starts out handwritten. Every single mark on these notation scores was drawn by hand (and probably erased and re-drawn at least three times).

Over the course of ten years, I've choreographed 116 pieces, which doesn't sound too impressive until you factor in the five-year performing arts degree and two years of that also independently working toward a musical theatre career (since the college sure wasn't interested in getting me actual experience let alone work in the field they were supposed to be training me for). I've also been working a legit full-time job for the past year and a half. In 2021 alone I choreographed twelve pieces -- all while working full time. This was something I never thought was possible (see also all my rants from 2012-13 about how I would never work a 9-to-5. And, technically, I'm still not, so 2012 me was right as well as stubborn). This year my goal is fourteen pieces this year, and I'm already over halfway there in less than four months. I am on pace for a 50-piece year -- in other words, to almost double my ten-year output by the end of 2023. And I'm working a 'real job' full time. All you who said it couldn't be done -- guess what, I'm doing it. Don't ever underestimate me.

I fully intend to expand my accomplishments in the relatively near future. Since I now have plenty of choreography to work with, it's time to get it seen (well, more regularly). I have at least two full-length shows planned for within the next five years, and I want to start busking this year. I also have a couple of dance films in active pre-production.

Do I wish I was farther along, doing bigger things, nicer films, larger shows, touring more? Yes. And I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me sad and frustrated sometimes. But I didn't quit. Despite all the detractors, I didn't quit.

We're still only at the edge of the dream, folks. There's so much more to come.

Sheeple

Two weeks ago my husband tested positive for COVID-19.

This meant I couldn't hug or kiss him or five days. But I'm grateful that it was only five days, and not a lifetime -- because the vaccine gave him a much higher chance of survival. I'm grateful he got COVID now, after he and I were double vaccinated, and not before, when it could have legitimately killed both of us.

It was terrifying seeing how sick he got, and I don't want to know how bad it could have been had he not been vaccinated. I wasn't feeling well either (but tested negative at first -- tested positive five days later), but he was truly in bad shape... and that was with the vaccine. I firmly believe that had he not been vaccinated, he would have died, and I would never get to hug or kiss him ever again. Five days is a long time, but a lifetime is even longer.

Call me a sheeple all you want, but the love of my life is alive today because of the vaccine. I and my crappy asthmatic lungs are alive because of the vaccine. My husband is alive and we still get to spend the rest of our lives together. If that makes me a sheeple, then I'm a sheeple. No regrets.

Music Day - Emotional Tourist

This is another one of those 'I can't believe I haven't featured this song' posts.

I got a CD with this song on it sent to me by an acquaintance in a fan group for obscure '80s music, while I was in college. It didn't take at first. I have already featured the one song that immediately stood out to me (here), but the rest of it was a slow burn. Despite this, I somehow kept returning to the album in the summer of 2018, and then, two days before M died, I randomly picked this song to warm up to one at my dance practice and choreographed almost the entire thing in two days. Something about the song grabbed my soul and dragged me along for the ride.

I'm just realising now as I think about it that this song probably got me through M's death. I was still at college, where I had already been emotionally abused for grieving after losing Brittney. I knew nobody was going to believe that one person could be unlucky enough to lose two 22-year-old friends within three years of each other. I knew I was going to be mocked and shamed for even talking about the fact that my very good friend had died.

I'm not good at stuffing feelings away. If I do, they become rage -- at everything. But I was completely immersed in an environment where there was nowhere to go. The only -- and I do mean the only -- refuge I had was dance. M died right when I was just coming off of the choreography high from this song, and I hyperfixated on both the song and the dance for it for the next year. It became my warmup dance for every practice, and I practiced every day. I've used it at dance auditions and submitted it to multiple competitions. It's probably the most personal dance I've ever choreographed.

Now for the actual song (hey, it only took me three paragraphs of personal ramblings before I remembered the point of this post instead of five...).

This starts out as what could be called a 'cheerful goodbye song.' It's upbeat with a lighthearted musical tone, even as the lyrics are contemplative and a little somber. One would never really notice unless they read them or really paid attention, given Scott's bright, energetic delivery, the beautifully interwoven guitar work, and the big drums.

Don't say the words goodbye, love

You'll break my heart in two

Rain clouds would fill the skies, love

And all because of you...

Such poetry. But in the very next breath we get a very different perspective.

Put me down as a lonesome traveler

Write me off as a minor character

I move, I leave no traces

Just a wave in a sea of faces...

The chorus solidifies the 'wandering heartbreaker' theme. Or, as one might put it, 'emotional tourist.' There's a melancholy tone here, but only if you're listening very closely.

In the second verse, Scott deftly transitions from the language of physical tourism to emotional tourism and continues to explore the theme of an emotional tourist -- always restless, never staying in one place -- by stealing a page from Daniel Amos' lyric sleeve for their ¡Alarma! album. Warzones, TV news, hungry children on the streets -- our protagonist sees them all within seconds, a rapid fire assault on both his consciousness and emotions. My heart feels as big as the ocean / My God, these are dangerous times...

How many times have I used that (first) phrase? I wrote an entire blog post about it years ago, how my heart felt like it was holding all the emotions of all the people in the world and how it felt like it was either going to explode, crush me, or strangle me.

This time, the chorus sounds weary. And in the bridge, we really see the compassion fatigue setting in... thank God I can change the channel.

The third chorus sounds sarcastic, aggressive, filled with pain. The protagonist has, for better or worse, claimed the title 'emotional tourist' as a defense to keep his battered soul from hurting anymore. The poem concludes with our protagonist repeatedly and desperately shouting thank God I can change the channel, as if saying it louder and more often will make all the problems in the world go away.

And I can relate.

In these hyperpoliticised COVID days, I think we can all relate.

Title: Emotional Tourist

Artist: Steve Scott

Album: Lost Horizons (I think? Steve Scott's music release history is very confusing)

Year: 1988 (maybe? see above)

iTunes here; YouTube here.

I'm just an emotional tourist

Call this a harlequin romance

So sad we couldn't make the connection

Call us victims of circumstance

Too bad we couldn't get it together

Put it down to a change in the weather

Someone said that there's nothing to fear except fear itself

Hey, I wish you were here...