A Joy In Class

For most of the year, I did not feel myself.  Certain people added to myself and brought myself out of me, but for the most part 2009 was a complete out of body experience.  I felt lost.  I felt out of the driver’s seat and panicked about that.  I tried to fit in.  I made excuses to myself.  I was all over the place.  Periods of time would come about when I  was myself, for a brief blip in time — Uncommon Women And Others (a wendy wasserstein play I did in March), Alisal Ranch (or family vacation spot/second home)…..

It freaked me out being an “adult” all of the sudden. The realization that at the end of the day, yes there are family and friends who love and care about you immensely, but at the end of the day it is just me.  I am alone.  I alone am responsible for me….and this is the first year it’s been like that.  I did not use my Calabasas home as a crutch or a retreat from real-life.  I was single the entire year without the structure of school and classes to distract me and give me a default on which to focus.  It was just me.  And that is really, really, really scary.

I experimented a lot this year.  I was disconnected and all-too-connected.  I cut my hair really short (hm).  I tried new foods and was vegan for a good 1/3 of the year (when I could control it and was preparing food for myself).  I told myself that I might have just been wrong all this time and could eat peanut butter and hummus and chocolate and not gain an ounce.  Mostly because I was sick of being taunted for my eating habits and just wanted to fit in.

That’s the story of my life.  Just wanting to fit in.

I spent the entire year in a state of perpetual anxiety and hating my body.  Hating money.  Hating the pressure put on me to do things I was never taught how to do.  Just getting by financially.  And overloading my body by binging, because of equal parts stress, fatigue, veganism, and the ever-haunting trying-to-fit-in.  (side note: I NEVER gain over the holidays, and here I am with an extra 7lbs SAYWHAT?)

I was really hurt this year romantically….by a former best friend whose secrets I kept in a lock box, so I childishly and blindly assumed when I asked questions I would get honest answers. Boy was I wrong. I felt like I exploited myself.  What was the worst was that I needed to keep these secrets from people they affected, people who had warned me I would be hurt and literally sat there while I cried on their shoulders about suspicions and gut-feelings.  And when those feelings were confirmed, I needed to keep my mouth shut.  Because if someone confides in me, there is no way I tell.  I used to think of him as a best friend who had happened to be my boyfriend for a year, avoiding the term “ex” due to negative connotations.  He’s not a best friend any more.  He’s an ex.

I am kind of ashamed of this year.

Professionally, I made out well.  It was a slow year, it seemed, but mostly because I was only in one play and the rehearsal process was sooo not all-consuming.  I got a new agency.  I did a play.  I did two commercials.  I filmed an indie.  I filmed a feature.  I started modeling for a swimwear company and worked with them 3xs throughout the course of the year.

But it was not enough.

I don’t believe in New Years Resolutions.

This year, I do.  But only the specific, do-able kind.  Nothing vast and overwhelming for this one.

1.)   Don’t eat what you think you “should” eat.  Whether this be a caloric amount or a type of food or a volume.  Just don’t.  You must trust that YOU know your body better than anyone else ever could fathom.  After all, YOUR spirit is inhabiting it, not anyone else’s spirit.

2.)   DO eat what you know to be right for YOU.  You know you don’t like oatmeal and don’t like slices of bread and don’t like papayas and don’t like applesauce and don’t like bananas?  You’re not winning any awards for eating them.  You will survive and flourish without them.  You know you can’t control yourself around hummus and that nuts in ANY form make you gain weight in your abdomen and chestular area (<–dislike).  Again, just because everyone else is eating them doesn’t mean you have to in order to fit in or be a “normal” person.  To use a god-awful clichés: If everyone decided to jump off a cliff or stick knives in themselves, would you too?  And on the subject of being a normal person…there are 6,793,600,000 Normals on this planet at this very second.  That number is only growing.

3.)   DON’T take any job that will kill your spirit and your drive.

4.)   DO always remember that you are an actor first and foremost.  You went to school for Musical Theatre.  You graduated and completed the upper-level MT courses.  Your first professional show was an Equity musical, your first televised gig was a hit show, and your first movie appearance was with a major movie star (that phrase annoys me) in what is being billed as the first blockbuster hit of 2010.  You: trust that YOU have proof that this IS for you and you are NOT “less than.” [EDIT: I re-read this and in no way did I mean to sound braggy or full of sh*t.......I hope it did not come off that way. :/ ]

5.)   DO visit your agents once a month.  With traffic, two hours of your day.  Multiple hours of your flourishing career.

6.)   DO take one rest day per week, and if you do activity, make sure it is yoga and restorative.

7.)   DO fill a quota of 4 smoothies per week.

8.)   DO take 1-3 hours on Sundays to clean your beautiful apartment so that it is a place of restorative energy and a productive hub of wellness the rest of the week.  Delegate responsibilities between you and the roomslice.

9.)   DON’T tie yourself to your computer.

10.) DO limit your non-work time on the computer to 2-2.5 hours total per day. One day a week you get a “computer cheat” and it can be longer, for dicking away on Facebook and such.

11.)  DO materialize a goal of being able to do a head stand as well as a solid Crow.

12.) DO focus on inversions in your yoga practice, and expand your inversion rep.

I have a theory about even-numbered years……

May 2010 be The Year Of Miracles.  Hugs and blessings to y’all

Happy New Year’s Eve from me, my new incredibly short hair, and the incredibly odd statue in my Grandparent’s bathroom.  You get to look at this while you do your business.  My grandma is SO great at SO many things.  Interior decorating is not one of them.