Painted into corners

One of the reasons I want to write a blog is to help people who feel like I do.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one who finds myself in a lifestyle like mine.  And I'm also willing to bet there are hundreds of people out there who will know exactly what I'm talking about, but are too afraid of pulling the trigger, too afraid of the What-if's and the hopes and the self-reliance.  And, I'll go even further to say that there are probably even hundreds more than THAT who could read this and go "oh my god.  This is EXACTLY what that vague sense of discontent feels like." 

I'm going to tell you my origin story, as it were.  My reason for being here, 27, unemployed, broke, freelance-everything.  It's a little triggery for sexual assault, self-harm, and suicide.  Consider yourself warned. 

I entered the workforce at 18, which is... a little late.  I didn't work in high school, but instead waited until I graduated, since I was privileged enough to have understanding parents who were totally onboard with the belief that school and homework and theater were enough for one person to contend with.  I worked for a few summers/holidays (through college, actually) at a grocery store, ping-ponging between being a barista, stockboy, fruit-basket-construction-artist (shut up), bakery assistant... you name it.  It was retail, it was mostly full time, and I spent every moment of it with a notebook and pen in my apron pocket, counting down minutes until it was time for me to go home and be free.  I thought that the vague sense of dread I felt every time I got in the car to go to work was something everyone felt.  (Maybe it is.  I haven't really been able to definitively determine that yet.) 

I quit working there after college, because, after months of being followed out to my car on breaks and at the end of the day by one of the numerous undocumented back-of-house employees, I was cornered in the stockroom and narrowly escaped being assaulted.  I wrote a statement "for the police" (it was never submitted to the police), and they determined that I was too much of a problem-child to be asked to return the following summer.  So I shopped my perky little behind across town to their direct competitor, who offered me a better position, better pay, and generally much nicer conditions. 

That was probably the only day job I can classify as having "enjoyed", but I still felt trapped while I was there.  Part of it was probably growing pains, since I was in the process of moving to Chicago for most of that year. 

I moved to Chicago and proceeded to cycle through 5 jobs in 5 years (which includes a cumulative year of unemployment at this point, full disclosure).  All of them hallmarked by the vague sense of dread which would eventually blossom into full-blown daily panic attacks, usually between months 3 and 6... if I even lasted that long.  I'm talking about crying-in-the-car, contemplating-suicide-to-get-out-of-it terror.  My dad got biweekly calls at work with me sobbing on the phone... usually from work... usually during work hours. 

I was afraid of leaving.  I was afraid of quitting ANOTHER job, because the economy sucks and you're supposed to be grateful to even HAVE a job.  But I wasn't grateful.  I was terrified of being yelled at by my bosses (even though I was a productive, quiet, well-behaved employee), I was exhausted by the schedule, I was falling asleep on my commute, and I was racking up thousands of dollars in debt because I would get home and I couldn't bear to do anything more strenuous than order a pizza and climb directly into bed.  Literally.  I've lived probably about three years of my life either sitting in my car, a rolling office chair, or my bed with no more transit time between them then it took to climb the stairs. 

To contrast this, the time I've spent unemployed included weekly 12-mile walks across the city.  Cooking for myself (and Kenneth) on at least a weekly basis.  5-hour binges of editing photos while watching MacGyver.  Travel to Boston.  I haven't had a single panic attack since I quit my last job.  I haven't had a major depressive episode since a month or two after I quit.  I haven't held THAT bottle of pills in my hand, the ones I know could kill me in 20 minutes if I swallowed them all, and thought about what would happen if I did, in so long I can't barely remember. 


The trade-off is that I don't have a steady income.  The unemployment extension that Kenneth keeps telling me is definitely going to get renewed is failing over and over again in the Senate, and this is month 2 of $500 or less income.  I live on food stamps, I maxed out my credit card in just under a year, my parents pay my health insurance, car insurance, and cell phone bill.  I'm basically a failure at being an adult.  But... so is everyone in my generation.  That's what happens when you're set up as a patsy, set up to fail. 


My point is... if you feel like I do... it's damn difficult.  But I'm making the choice for mental health and a life on my own terms.  Because, even when I'm staring down the barrel of completely running out of money, of moving back to my parents house with nothing but the clothes on my back, I remember that sitting for 40 hours under someone else's flourescent lights made me want to die.  Made me physically and mentally sick.  And I really don't have a choice at all, if you think about it that way. 

A (very) personal project

Every once in awhile, I get a brainwave that has nothing to do with how much money I could be making.  It doesn't happen very often anymore, since I live in a constant state of financial desperation, but once in a great while, it occurs to me that there are things that I would like to do, simply because I have a passion to do them.  This is one of those moments.

I was supervising a theater rental last night (I brought Kenneth along with me, bribed with coffee, but that's another story.), and I was remarking about how I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself, as I don't even trust myself enough to know that what I want is really what I want, or is good for me.  I've been continually frustrated by this self-mistrust lately. 

Driving home, I dropped Kenneth off at the train, and took Lakeshore Drive up north.  I rarely drive on LSD, because the traffic can be hellish, and really, it's out of my way, unless I have to drop people off at the train for any reason.  Zipping up the shoreline, I hazarded a glance out at the endless darkness that is Lake Michigan.  And I remembered how much I love the water, and how it's really been nagging at me that I wish I could get out of the city and go spend some time at my family's cottage in northern Michigan. 

And then I remembered a goal I had had when I was about 16 or so.  I had decided that I wanted to photograph all the lighthouses on the Great Lakes.  When I was 16, I decided it would be AWESOME if I could make the whole trip on foot, because then you would really be in tune with all the minutiae of the world and the water.  For the record, I think it would take about a decade to walk around the ENTIRE chain of great lakes.  Thinking about it right now, it would probably be a really cool thing to do by bike, if I wasn't planning on carrying a zillion pounds of gear, or bringing companions.  As it stands, my current hope is to be able to start in Chicago, end in Buffalo, and pass through about ten thousand towns along the way, dead, dying, post-industrial, or resort. 

I want to photograph the lighthouses, yes.  And the lakeboats, and the lake, and the water and the trees and the sky.  But I also want to record a narrative of the midwest.  The Great Lakes region.  Canada and the U.S.  The collective voice of my home, the people who live there.  The history that runs through everything like water.  The whole span of human history, crushing in front of my lens simultaneously. 

I want to take the summation of all my feelings about those woods and that water from my entire life, and I want to express them. 

My end goal is twofold.  I'd love to write a book about the experience, stuffed with shiny, full-color digital photographs of my journey. 

But I'd also like to take the absolute best of the photographs, be it ten or a hundred or seven-hundred-thirty-two, and create prints.  The platinum-palladium prints that I learned in college, that lent such a timeless antiquation to my subjects.  And I'd like to have a gallery exhibition.  I want the narrative of my lakes and my history and my boundless love to be shared, to be known. 

So... I'm going to start researching, with the goal of departing in the summer of 2013, and just being an adventurer for however long it takes.  I need to know a lot of things before I go.  How many lighthouses *are* there?  What else can I plan on visiting?  How much time can I allot in case I find something I *didn't* plan on visiting?  Hotels?  What happens to my apartment?  My cat?  Who wants to come with me, and for how long?  I imagine this journey is going to take the entire summer, at the very least. 

And I don't want to neglect the other part of me either.  I'd love to do some research into the burlesque scene of every major metropolitan area I will pass through on my journey.  I'd love to make my personal journey one where I build bridges in the present-day as well.  And it wouldn't hurt to get paid to perform every once in awhile on my way either. 


I expect this project will be coming, sooner or later, to Kickstarter, in the hopes that I can drum up support for the grandest adventure I've always ached to have. 

A matter of perspective

I've been feeling very overwhelmed and unmotivated lately.  Sometimes, I feel as if that is my natural state, since I seem to say that a lot.  But it's true.  The more I have to accomplish, the more I want to run away, until I'm trapped in a corner with my hands over my ears going "LA LA LA!  CAN'T HEAR YOU!!"

I've been having one of those moments the last few weeks.  There are dishes in my sink that are now coated with some sort of nastiness that I don't even want to fathom, because every time I look at them, I just get too overwhelmed to deal with it. 

I had a chat with one of my fellow burlesketeers, Marci Vousplait, a few days ago.  We both made our debuts sometime last year, and both of us remarked how this feeling has set in where we just don't want to work on anything right now.  For me, it's this overwhelming feeling again.  I've accomplished how many acts?  In six months time, I've finished two regular-run acts, one holiday act, worked on another, plus the three iterations of our group act, the Vaudezilla group acts, and our new group act.  It's a lot of work, and a lot of money, and it's gotten to the point where I just have a hard time thinking about it without reflexively watching a few minutes of MacGyver, (or a random Youtube video) just to try and chase it out of my head. 

But I've been thinking about it today.  Because it's really sort of a matter of perspective.  The first thing that helped was writing myself a to-do list.  Just a short blurb to get everything that was nagging at me out of my head, and down on a thing I can look at to remind me.  The next thing was really mentally preparing for showing my latest act in rehearsal tonight.  Normally an activity I dread, this time I concentrated my energies on trying to give a good performance, and really boosted my enthusiasm for getting it accomplished.  And you know what?  It was a zillion times better. 

I know that I have a hard time seeing the forest through all the trees, but I'd like to keep concentrating on the big picture, knocking out one thing at a time, and really attacking these next few weeks.  Because I can accomplish everything on those big, scary to-do lists.  I just have to look at it the right way. 

Progress

...and, in some cases, a little bit of regress.

Progress comes with a variety of faces. And sometimes, a little regress is welcome too.
I have been continuing with my goal of knitting daily, and I have put out three blanket squares in (I believe) less than three weeks. What took me months to do before, I've done in a matter of weeks, and there's a fair bit of pride in me to realize that my actions have tangible results.

Progress, too, has been made in the realm of my personal existence. I discovered earlier in the week that a boy with whom I have a long and arduous past has recently gotten himself a Facebook, after years of adamantly denying he would ever have one. Upon a quick overview of the place (something that it pains me even to admit having done) I have discovered that, in fact, he is still the same boy I demanded leave my life a year ago this month. And it is becoming clear to me now, in ways that somehow eluded me for the previous FIVE YEARS, that this separation is exactly what I need. And that I need to concentrate on what I've done and accomplished.
Yes, this past year has been insanely rough for me without his presence, but I've done so damn much. I moved to a new city. I lived on my own. I've stumbled through a series of more or less successful jobs. I've Stage Managed two professional shows. And I've discovered the Burlesque community, a group of amazing, empowering, ridiculously sexy women who inspire me to find the beauty in myself and flaunt it mercilessly.
And what has he done? Stayed, to my knowledge, in the same apartment. Worked a circuit of Ren. Fairs. Fucked a lot of stupid young girls who didn't know better. In short, the same damn thing he's been doing, pretty much since I met him.

One day our paths will cross again, I am fair certain of it. (or maybe I just still hope, foolishly) But if they don't... then it is my stalwart goal to become the heir to the Burlesque throne, be beautiful, poised, graceful, and self-assured. And leave him to wonder just why it was that he thought I was no better than a doormat to be used up and flung out into the rain.



...And as for the regression I spoke of at the beginning of this post, it comes in the form of an old friend, or maybe just an old fandom. A marathon of Stargate: SG-1 reruns yesterday made me think about my early college days, when such events were a weekly occurrance. How different I was then. I used to take time out of each day to recognize the beauty of the world around me. I lived slowly and thoughtfully. I watched the stars, walked in the rain, and meditated frequently.

I feel as though that might be a touchstone for me. Something to get back to. And if it takes a marathon of Stargate now and again to remind me... then so be it.

Welcome

Welcome to my... life, I guess.
I've been someone who has wanted a blog for many years, but could never think of what to blog about. My life was never the kind I thought would be interesting to other people. And, indeed, it wasn't. It isn't. As it stands right now, I am 23, broke, and living in the big city. I don't go out with friends, I have no serious hobbies, and I am a shameless internet addict.

BUT.

I have a goal. By the time I am 35 years old, I want to live the life I've so far only dreamed of. I want to own a home, an urban farmstead. I want to escape the daily grind of 9to5, and live solely off the profits of my real passion (professional theatre) and whatever hobbies might crop up along the way.

And I'm treating the next twelve years as an experiment in getting there. Because I not only need to work hard, if I plan to live outside the world of financial security, but I also need to cultivate the sense of self that I somehow lost along the way to this point.

You will probably find all sorts of nonsense here in the future. Musings on my progress, admonishments for not moving along as I planned. Insights as to how exactly I'm accomplishing what I have. It will probably be two parts artistic ramblings and one part financial woes. And you might even get to hear about my not-wedding, if that happens as I suspect it might.
So... join me. Maybe my journey won't be quite as straight as the crow flies. But... We'll get there.