If I were a drinker...

...I might pick this weekend to drink.

It's just been a long, intense, emotional week, and I dealt with it by spending WAY too much time in my head, to my own detriment and possibly to the temporary detriment of several friendships (sorry, everyone). There's not really any one particular thing going on. It's lots of things.

It's "Mockingbird" closing, which hurts so much that I haven't even really had the courage to face it. I was not ready for that show to end. And while I trust that I will have plenty of other meaningful experiences with other wonderful people, "Mockingbird" came at such an important time and I built so many incredible friendships and the story is so important...it's just hard to let go of.

It's this paper I'm supposed to be working on for my Narrative Journalism class, that I can't find my way into, that's so big and sprawling and all the quotes and research are all so overwhelming. And my interview with the one source that would have been the perfect "way in" fell through.

It's being divorced, and navigating all of the new territory I find myself in. The loneliness and freedom and uncertainty and unfamiliarity of it all.

It's missing my sister so much that my chest physically aches.

It's auditions for "The Heart of Robin Hood" coming up in a week, and being so busy and overwhelmed by other things that I didn't finalize an audition song until YESTERDAY, so now I'm trying to cram a lot of preparation into seven days.

It's feeling like my testimony is being rearranged a little bit right now. Which is, ultimately, a good thing, but it's not exactly comfortable.

It's not being able to find an ENTIRE 50,000-WORD DRAFT of one of my old NaNoWriMo novels, which is actually still so overwhelming that I haven't fully pursued looking for it.

It's trying to balance my introverted need for alone time and my lonely need for companionship, which I haven't had to do to this extent since I was twenty-two or so, when I was a slightly different person under very different circumstances.

It's re-evaluating what I really want. In friendships. In Church. In life. In relationships. In how I spend my time. I feel like I have a solid core of understanding about who I am, and about the big abstract things I want. I want to be kind and learn a lot and experience things fully and make other people's lives better and create meaningful art. But it's figuring out the concrete, every day ways to do those things that's taking some re-evaluation.

It's doing one improv show and feeling like my contributions to it were small and pretty mediocre, and then doing another improv show that was so so solid.


But it hasn't JUST been challenging things. There have been great things this last week, too.

Getting really positive feedback on one of my workshop pieces for my MFA.

My 3-year-old nephew gleefully screaming my name and running to hug me when I showed up to babysit, and the hilarious speed with which my 10-month-old nephew crawls.

Sitting and talking with girls from the "Mockingbird" cast while we played with five adorable tiny puppies.

Having some pretty awesome validation for my work as an actress.

Buying a bunch of new bras that I'm OBSESSED with.

Eating popsicles and watching a documentary with a friend on a Tuesday night.

Finishing a painting and having it turn out even better than I had envisioned.

Spending time with the cast and crew of "Mockingbird" on a Sunday afternoon, eating food and talking and laughing.

Good conversations (even though some have also been scary conversations) with friends, with family, with my therapist, with my God.

Dinner with an old friend and his significant other, eating amazing Thai food and laughing and talking and reminiscing.


See? Beautiful and challenging things. It's just I've got a lot spinning around my mind-grapes nowadays, and it can be overwhelming experiencing all of this while simultaneously working 20 hours a week, taking MFA classes, and also doing all the little stupid things that need to be done, like filling the gas tank and doing the dishes and fixing the bathroom faucet and folding the laundry and restringing the guitar and finishing that graphic design project and refilling a prescription and getting groceries and watering the plants and sewing the sleeves on those blouses and eating and sleeping and basic hygiene.


I'm real grateful for a 3-day weekend, y'all. I don't have any solid plans, and I keep thinking about possible impromptu road trips that I probably can't afford to go on. But boy, are my feet itchin' to go on a road trip. I started this blog by saying that if I were a drinker, I'd drink this weekend. But I think it would just be another form of "running away." There have been lots of times in my life when I've "run away," but I've always come back. It's just a momentary escape. A moment to re-align my mirrors, get my head on straight, take a breath. I'd stop running away if it stopped working.

When I left work on Friday, my boss asked me what my weekend plans were. I said, "I might go on a road trip." When he asked where, I said, "I haven't decided yet." And I'm still deciding. Deciding whether I even need or want to run away, and if I do, what form it will take. But whether I hop in the car and keep driving or sit at home and paint, I'm really glad I have a long weekend to do so.

art via David Wallace