- It might be a while before you get cast in something as awesome as the awesome project again. Don't despair. Don't stop trying. You love it, you love it more than all of the other things people tell you to love - it's the closest you get to storytelling, it's the closest you get to God, it's the closest you get to some sense of purpose. You inhabit yourself those rehearsal rooms, on those stages. Don't give that up because you get tired of waiting. It's yourself you are waiting for, not the next job, because you truly live in the plays. Feel free to find a better way to amuse yourself in between times, but don't stop trying. You love it in a way that means it should be your job - because you'll care about it.
- Try to relax. You're only going to get older from here. Try for dignity and grace. You've spent a large part of your life sad and disappointed about all the things you're not. LET IT GO. There are a lot of things you are not. But inherent in that is that you are something. Concentrate on that, meditate on that. You are something. Distill it if you can. Transcend it if you can. But start stepping on the stones that are there instead of mourning the ones that are absent.
- Honestly? You're bad at giving things up. At letting them go. Think of it as habitual lateness - you need to set the clock ahead a bit to accommodate your natural inclinations. It will take extra time to let some things go. Go ahead and accept that.
- You're still going to be a complete fool. No matter how hard you try, how much you mask it, you heart is bigger than your brain. You pretend it isn't, you spend a lot of time hiding one behind the other. Good luck with that. I'm not sure how that's going to work out. I'd say let's blow it wide open, future self, let's just love as hard as we can, but there's a lot of pitfalls there and if I knew how to avoid them we'd be somewhere totally different by now. I guess you should just get more comfortable with the idea of being foolish. Settle in.
- You're going to need some more luck for everything to work out the way you want it to. But if you stick with doing the things that bring you joy, things will work out. It's like wanting to be at the table where everyone is laughing - spend your time with the joy, and you can't regret it.
When in doubt, look for some joy. If you find it, that's where you should be. All right, future self. I hope you're reading this and thinking, oh, yes, that was the day I figured out how to get here, and you look around at your sunny kitchen that always has good music, good friends, and good food, pets and maybe children hanging around the kitchen table (the one you've had sex on), and you think, yes, I got here, finally. Now smile and go make a cup of tea. Here's to being something, finally.
No comments:
Post a Comment