Hey all.
It’s been awhile.
Lots has
been happening in my world over the past couple of months and I feel like
sharing some of it with you.
In my
continuous effort to manage my anxiety etc. I was able to cross something else
off my bucket list.
Solo theatre.
Now, cross off might seem final, but instead, I found it to be an experience
that I need to continue to work on forever.
It’s been
hinted at growing up that I may have
a tad of a desire to take to the
stage. The timing is perfect for me now since I am at an age and stage in my
life where I am willing to do battle with my self-doubt.
It’s still
there, but I’m doing it anyway. For all of my life I have been looking for
artificial ways to deal with my emotional ups and downs. Though they haven’t
worked, they have certainly given me a shitload of material to work with as far
as storytelling goes!
It’s only
now that I am able to look back through the humiliation and despair and see the
bit of (ok, a lot of) humour in my past behaviour. If I wasn’t able to do that,
I would have been sucked down the drain of life for good.
At T minus
3 years to 50, I’m ready. I’ve wanted to perform and make people laugh since I
could walk, but I didn’t have the courage to do anything about it. I would
perform in my head and in some really dark times, perform while intoxicated and
called it acting.
Soulo
Theatre Founder and Artistic Director Tracey Erin Smith, has shown me a better
way to clear the gunk out of my system and turn it into theatre. I found I
enjoyed it so much more than flushing it out with alcohol. The euphoria I feel
on the stage for 10 minutes is 1000x more than the 30 minutes of euphoria I
feel getting drunk. The rest of the time is blank. And I don’t want any more
blank spaces.
It’s ok
what others think. It’s totally ok for people to roll their eyes. It’s more
than ok for others to not “get” what I mean when I say that storytelling is not
only fulfilling to me in so many ways and I will continue, it is also the best
therapy I could have hoped for in my life.
So keep
those challenges coming. It’s all excellent material.
And thanks
to Soulo Theatre for showing me the way. And big thanks to Tracey, Brian, Kat, Chris, Domini and Eleni for the support.
Find your “thing” and make it work for you.
