National Novel Writing Month 2022 Teaser

Yes, dear readers, it is that time of year again. National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is only six days away.

This year's idea came to me backstage during the one and only theatre production I did this year. I was literally in the wings waiting for my cue when suddenly the main character's name, the world, the setting, and the plotline all popped into my head fully formed. I've been doing this long enough to know this was it. I went onstage, did my scene, and then came backstage and wrote down as much as I could in my journal before my next entrance.

And then, like I usually do, I ignored it for the next four months. (Otherwise I'll write it and have nothing for NaNoWriMo.)

I am really excited about this one. I knew before I even got this idea that I wanted to do a science fiction story, but I could never have manufactured this one by brainstorming. Sometimes brainstorming works, but more often I find my best ideas are just 'given' to me and all I have to do is write them down. Those are the moments that make all the mockery and ridicule for pursuing this craft worth it.

This idea took my recently-developed love of modern-day parables and mixed it perfectly with the outer space setting I wanted -- so perfectly that this book literally could not work set anywhere else. The whole plot hinges on this setting. And it fits right in with all my rants about Evangelicals. I have not been this excited for NaNoWriMo in literally almost a decade.

It all starts next Tuesday.

If you want to write your own, check out nanowrimo.org for details and to sign up. It's 50,000 words in 30 days (or 1,667 words per day), and not one word needs to be 'handed in' or 'graded.'  Nobody will see it unless you want them to. This is purely writing for the sake of writing. No pressure (other than the 30-day deadline).

A Way To Support Me

You may notice a new button along the right side of the blog, just underneath my bio.

Jury's still out on the Patreon page, but for now I'm trying to bridge the gap with Ko-fi. Ko-fi has the option of one-time donations rather than monthly contributions (although it can be set up that way too), which lowers the pressure on potential supporters and the initial commitment level. I know as well as anybody how tight things are financially and how hard it is to commit to a monthly pledge in the current financial climate. I currently have the minimum donation set to $3, although you can certainly contribute more if you like.

Right now I have a financial goal of $500 on the site. That's how much money it will take to get me back into dance training one hour a week this fall. I've been off for two years and rebuilding my mental/emotional health for a third. I feel I'm at a point in my mental health/burnout recovery where I can -- and perhaps should -- go back into the studio and start training my body again. Unfortunately, gas prices do not agree and neither does my paycheque. My paycheque only covers bills and rent. It does not cover fun things or mental health things like dance, books, and music. Heck, sometimes it barely covers food and rarely covers gas (I walk to work and try very hard not to have to go anywhere else -- not even to the library to read books for free).

Ko-fi is going to be my artistic income. My 'real' job is going to take care of the bills, but my plan is for Ko-fi to fund what I really want to do (rather than trying to raise enough through Ko-fi to cover my living expenses AND my artistic work).

Right now, my goals are mainly going to be training-based -- classes and intensives. As I get my dance legs back under me, I'll start posting more film-related goals (costumes, dancers, sets, light design), and once I finish this Kyrie rewrite (over one-third done and still going!), there'll be a goal to raise the money to pay an editor. But the vast majority of the money from the Ko-fi will be going into my dance training/education/development, and all of it will be going to my artistic work in general.

If you can contribute even $3 (the price of a coffee -- and I should know, I work in the industry), that would help so much. Even if you can't spare three bucks, share the link with your arts-loving friends. I deeply appreciate any and all help.

Thank you.

Filmmaker's Block

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

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

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

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

But this is a duet.

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

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

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

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

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

Bandwagon, Month Eleven

For the first time in my life, I have filled up a notebook.

I have owned quite literally hundreds (if not thousands) of notebooks over the years. Most of them sit blank in an apple box in my parents' basement. The rest are scattered on bookshelves, on desks, in closets, in boxes, on average one-quarter to one-third full. There's always a new notebook that's more portable, more pages, easier to write in, prettier, less full of dated or irrelevent information... there was always a reason to get a new notebook, despite the dozens sitting at home in pristine condition.

When I got on the bullet journal bandwagon late last September in a desperate attempt to reclaim my mind from the black hole of isolation and depression, I expected more than anybody else did that I'd ditch it after a couple of months.

Yesterday, I started on the last page.

I don't know what to do now. Do you thank it for its service somehow? Do you say goodbye? Do you just pretend it's just another page and carry on into the next book as if nothing's happened? Do you write some kind of epilogue summing up this particular period of your life? What do you do at the end of a notebook or journal?

I generally do about a page a day, so today is almost certainly the final day with this pink Leuchtturm that's been within arm's reach for almost a year now. It holds my page count tracker from last NaNoWriMo as well as the hastily-written sketch for this year's plot (scribbled 'backstage' in the desert sand of an outdoor amphitheatre while I waited for my cue during my most recent show). It holds notes on several dance film projects in various stages of blockage (mostly because I am TERRIFIED to talk to people -- any people, even professionally -- since my last remaining friends absolutely ditched me at the end of November after telling me they'd always be there for me).

I will definitely be referring to this journal in the coming months as I try to bring at least some of these projects to completion, so (as my husband always says), it's not 'goodbye' so much as it is 'see you later.' But our relationship is definitely changing, and it does make me a little sad.

Thank you for being my friend and companion, even when nobody else would, even on the days I didn't want to make it out alive. I shall remember you always with fondness and gratitude.

A Friend Restored

Anybody who's still alive from the olden days of this blog may remember me referencing Lila, my Neo 2 portable word processor.

Lila died after a brief illness in June 2019 -- the day I met my husband, actually. And while some depressingly poetic souls might try to turn this into a 'death to the old to make way for the new' story, I disagree. Lila was my friend. I couldn't bring Brittney or M back, but maybe, one day, I could bring Lila back.

She languished in my closet for three years as I waited for the day. My brother gave me his own Neo 2 that he wasn't using (a slightly newer model who I affectionately if somewhat awkwardly called 'Lila 2'). Lila 2 suffered an even more brief but similar illness in November 2021 and died on Day 17 of NaNoWriMo. Luckily I was far enough ahead by then to absorb the blow of not writing an extra thousand words during my lunch break, but I did feel the loss deeply.

As the world begins to open up again and I begin to travel more for performance training and opportunities, I miss being able to whip out that little device on the bus or in a guest bedroom between classes or rehearsals.

Months ago, when I was bemoaning the loss of the Lila twins in a Discord group, somebody sent me a link to a tutorial for changing the little button cell battery. Suddenly there was hope. The symptoms they both showed during their illnesses could very easily be explained by a dying backup battery, and both units were old enough to conceivably have this issue. (I had also been hyperfixating on The 8-Bit Guy's restoration videos during most of the pandemic and wanted very much to try doing a simple repair of an electronic device simply because it looked so satisfying.)

There was nothing to lose. Both machines were unusable in their current state anyway. I bought two CR2032 batteries, popped out the AAs and cracked open Lila 2.

The hardest part was getting the old battery out. All the objects with skinny pointy ends in the entire house seemed to be made of metal and the last thing I wanted to do was short out the motherboard for good, as fixing that is definitely beyond my abilities. After trying my fingers, wooden knitting needles, and the hard end of a shoelace, I finally cut a fuzzy end off of a Q-tip and that did it (no, we don't have toothpicks in the house).

The next hardest part was getting twelve very small and fiddly screws back in. I spent six years in construction and screws don't scare me, but one was a particularly stubborn little thing and I had to enlist my husband's help in the end.

I put the AAs back in and tried to power it on. The screen remained blank. My heart dipped a little, but I plugged it into the computer, whereupon the screen lit up and asked if I had changed the internal battery. I pressed Y and it told me to press Enter to restart. I did, and within seconds it appeared to be ready. Of course everything had been wiped, as I had expected. When Lila 2 started showing symptoms of the same illness that had taken her predecessor, I had backed her up immediately (unfortunately I had not been so proactive the first time around, but I have come to terms with the fact that everything on the original Lila is now irretrievable). After a few minutes, I unplugged it from the computer and tried again to power it on.

Nothing.

I began to panic slightly more. The entire point of having a portable word processor is so that I don't have to carry my laptop around. It's no use to me if it only works when connected.

But in the spirit of trying everything, I raided my husband's remote-battery stash for more AAs and tried again to power it on.

It worked.

I almost screamed. I typed a few sentences, turned it off and then on again, typed some more, ran into the room where my husband was live-streaming and danced excitedly by his desk until he looked at Lila 2's screen.

One down... one to go.

Lila the original is in a bit rougher shape. I had a sibling dump a Tim Horton's frozen lemonade into her keyboard many years ago. Her motherboard seemed unaffected, however, quite a few of the keys stuck, especially on cold days. Not only that, the Caps Lock key came off right around the time of her death. I remember saving both the key and the scissor mechanism, but I've moved three times since then and could not begin to tell you where that key and the mechanism are now. Could I still use the button without a proper key? Yes -- the plunger's still there -- but if I'm going to restore her, I would like to restore her to her former glory.

I'm just happy knowing it's possible and that I have one of my buddies back with me for November. I already have a plot that I'm very excited about, and I feel much better knowing I'll be able to write on the go both during the event and in the pseudo-planning time leading up to it.

For once in my life -- a friend died and it wasn't permanent.

29

 29 things I've learned about myself:

1. At age twelve I theorised that my brain and my ears processed spoken words more slowly than other people and this was why I could never keep up with conversations. Over ten years later I learned that that's a real thing (called auditory processing disorder) and I have it.

2. I find writing novels much, MUCH easier than writing short stories. In fact, the more condensed the medium, the more I struggle with it.

3. I do my best artistic work either as a passenger in a vehicle or alone in a darkened room between 11pm and 2am.

4. At age seven I decided I wanted to be a choreographer. I didn't even know what the name for it was yet, but I knew I wanted to make dances. In the twenty-two years since then, nobody has been able to convince me otherwise. (In other words: if you're on a mission to talk me out of it... just give up. Save yourself the hassle.)

5. I still accidentally tell people I can't read music even though I totally can. I just couldn't for so long that I forget that I've learned now.

6. I would rather live in -40 year-round than plus 24 or higher for more than two days. This opinion becomes stronger every day. I become completely nonfunctional if the temperature is over 23 degrees.

7. I am very passionate about art, specifically integrity within art. If you don't like it, leave; because I'm not dialling it back.

8. Eating chicken can be an okay (rather than terrifying) experience, but ONLY if my husband prepares it.

9. By age four, I had chosen what would be my favourite potato chip flavour for apparently the rest of my life. And I am very much a snob about different brands.

10. I love '80s keyboards. The more '80s keyboards/synths a song has, the more likely I am to like it.

11. The people who call me 'stubborn' are generally the people who are mad that I'm not putty in their hands. (After years of having my identity shaped for me by people in authority, I'm forging my own and I don't take requests from just anybody.)

12. My favourite books are Perelandra by C.S. Lewis and Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers. Both books are art in every sense of the word and have inspired some of my own works.

13. I have been loyal to Papermate pens since my early teens. I also very much prefer having capped pens rather than clicker pens (I like the weight of the cap on the end while I'm writing).

14. I hate cooking. I would literally rather starve than cook. There is literally nothing I even remotely like about being in the kitchen for any length of time.

15. I really don't enjoy food/eating. I don't understand it when people talk about food as a source of pleasure. To me, eating is a necessary evil that takes up valuable time and energy that I could be devoting to my art.

16. I think and talk about death a lot. I don't see this as morbid or wrong. It's simply a part of existence and I don't understand why people avoid the topic so much. It's the one thing all of humankind has in common. Death is something that touches us all sooner or later, and it's been a huge part of my life so far. It's shaped who I am as a person and as an artist. To ignore it is to ignore what makes me who I am.

17. I HATE toxic positivity. It's a form of gaslighting... which is manipulation... which is abuse.

18. I also hate sleeping. Just lie there unconscious and unmoving for eight hours? What a colossal waste of time. Do you know how much art I could get done in eight hours? Sleep feels useless and dumb to me. This is also why I never take naps, no matter how tired I am.

19. I really wish I could draw. I mean, I can draw okay. But I can never think of anything to draw.

20. I am honest to a fault. About EVERYTHING. If you don't like it/can't handle it, get out of my life. And I mean that.

21. I never expected to live this long, let alone get married. And I'm not quite sure what to do with myself now. I never prepared for this.

22. If I could pick an age to be stuck at, it would probably be age nineteen. I was dancing almost full-time, choreographing for my friend's dance team, gainfully employed at a flexible well-paying job that I really enjoyed, on good terms with my church at the time... there was literally nothing wrong with my life when I was nineteen.

23. The first time I ever remember hearing about Jesus was when I 'accidentally' read Mark's account of Jesus raising Jairus' daughter from the dead when I was about four or five. I had heard of Jesus in Sunday School, but I'd never heard of Him doing anything like that in the Sunday School lessons. Maybe this was why I got so angry and felt so betrayed when my young cousin died... and was not raised back to life.

24. I wanted to be a dancer before I even knew what it was called. I have no memory of seeing a dance performance and thinking, 'I want to do that.' We had no TV and my parents never went to the theatre. I don't know how I knew dance existed. But I wanted it so badly I begged my parents for lessons for over a year before they relented. I point to this internal 'knowing' as one of the signs that this is my calling.

25. Sunset/dusk/night have always been my favourite times of day. That's when all the inspiration is born.

26. I feel alive when I'm near trees, in the country with emerald-green grass and pink and orange sunsets.

27. If you overplay a song -- no matter how good it is or how much I like it -- I will hate that song for the rest of my life. This is the reason I absolutely despise Bohemian Rhapsody. I do not care how clever or well-sung or well-crafted it is. I have heard it approximately eight million times in my life and nobody should ever have to listen to ANYTHING that many times. I loathe that song. Same goes for the Frozen soundtrack.

28. To me, 'luxury' is having a fireplace in your house. Even (especially?) if it's a gas fireplace.

29. I see myself as a joyful, positive person overall. My journals are consistently filled with joy, ideas, possibilities, and hope. Maybe that's why it hurts SO deeply when people rail against me for being 'too negative.'

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?