Today, I finally had that end of the quarter breakdown. The one that seems to be looming just like the tear that needs to be shed or the words that have to be choked down. You feel it coming until the impending feeling becomes a part of you. It took the question: How heavy is water? for me to lose it. But this meltdown didn't come in the form of tears or resistance, it was just laughter escaping me for no seemingly logical reason. I laughed and I laughed and I giggled and I cracked jokes until I sought refuge in my room and sank into my bed. I turned on the movie Up In The Air and I vegetated.
The movie opens as I expected it would. The main character shows us how efficient and uncomplicated his life is without any human connections. Everything is routine and everything is peaceful. But, of course, it's all too good to be true and two women enter into his life. One, 'himself with a vagina' and one, a young girl wavering between the main character's life of sterility and seeking love.
The world of theater has always held this same mystique to me and I've always wondered what it means to truly give up hope on having a family, falling in love, having friends and what all that would feel like. The main character, Ryan, had it all until he met Alex and understood love and felt wanted and discovered what he'd been missing.
And to some degree, I think that's what has happened to me here at CCM. I'm not saying that I don't have friends at home or that the people I met prior to this place never meant a thing to me. That time in my life was just too raw for me. The window into what is reality was so obscured with crap that I couldn't fathom anything beyond it. So I relied on stage management and let that blind me to everything. I had 'people' that needed me and that I needed and that was enough for me. The bond was so surface but it was all I knew and all I understood and when everyone left at the end of a production it seemed timely and inevitable. This sounds so miserable and so saptastic and that I will sum up my experiences since being here at CCM as 'eye opening'. My best memories from this year all involve people...friends, coworkers.
So the question is: where do I find that middle ground between my career and the people I love? Where do I create those extra hours in a day to go to rehearsal and hang out with friends? When do I decide that I need to stay up with a crying friend rather than sleep? Will CCM manage to squelsh both goals and both unattainables? Will I strive to be the best stage manager and leave people behind? Will anyone care?
So really, there were a lot of questions and all of them will have to remain unanswered. Until then...
The stars will wheel forth from their daytime hiding places; and one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over.
This is a very poignant statement about the way that many of us in the business feel, especially at CCM. Having been out and working in the "real world", there is hope. There is a world out there where you work, and then you do the thing we don't get to do very often here: Go home. Not just physically go home, but go to our friends, family, random strangers. Work is work and life is life. The people we interact with at school are some of the best, brightest, and most talented up and coming artists in the world, and that is what keeps me going. As a stage manger, the reason I love my job as much as I do is that I get to facilitate art, through others. People are the reason I do my job. People are the reason I kill myself every time I'm on a show at school by balancing school with "work" (the show). Going to rehearsal is my solace, and sometimes, however hard it is, it is worth it. There is nothing like facilitating the discovery and growth of some of the most special people in the world, artists.
ReplyDeleteThey are the reason I do it. And they are the reason I can make it through.
It is all about relationships. Remember that.
TB