It's not you...

“What have you been up to lately?”

It’s a question I’ve been hearing a lot of.

After years of virtually ceaseless cyber-pimping and e-whoring, I’ve been mostly offline for the past 8 months or so. 

I just – quit.

I quit lots of things.  Improv, blogging, writing, comedy, indie film… I wasn’t sure why. 

I went from, “I just need a couple weeks to get my head straight,” to, “I can’t do this, and I don’t know how to tell people, and now I don’t want to talk to anyone about anything or do anything or see anyone…”

In all fairness, it’s been a few super crazy years since my last ‘time out.’ 

Sometimes, I just need to put MYSELF in a corner...

 

 

And it’s not like society just gives us a hall pass any time we’re having an existential crisis.  I know – how very ‘first world’ of me – right?

But it’s true.  In the last few months, I’ve received several messages that consist mostly of, “Are you okay? What happened to you?  Where are you?”

No.

I haven’t been okay.  I’m not sure what happened to me and – where am I?  Well, my address is Winter Park, Florida, but I have few friends, no job and now that school is over, I can’t think of one good reason outside of my family commitments to stay.

But going back to Daytona isn’t the right answer either.  The easiest answer is to do nothing – change nothing – go back to being the ‘go to girl’ for a bunch of different people and projects – driving all over Central Florida every day and wondering why I’m not a household name while I’m investing all the precious time I have left on this earth in everyone else’s dreams. 

I’m not saying that other people’s work isn’t important or awesome or exciting.  But I somehow forgot the reason I went back to school in the first place – to strengthen my own brand and gain the credentials that would help me put my own projects first. 

So a few weeks ago, still floundering in my cesspool of ‘what next?’ I got a text from a friend in NYC.  He’s got a rental property that needs a tenant.  And I’ve got a life that needs a new direction.

Sure – it’s cold up there, and 13 years of Florida living has made my blood pretty thin.

Sure, there’s part of me that can’t bear the thought of leaving the family of amazing friends and artists who have worked beside me for years creating comedy, music, and more memories than I ever dreamed possible.

There’s part of me that wonders if maybe I should just stay put, curl up, cash in, call it quits and just use my family as an excuse to not seek anything more in my life.  After all, saying you’re sticking it out to help take care of aging family members is certainly noble, and much less selfish sounding than packing whatever shit you can fit into a tiny Chevy Sonic and taking a huge gamble in the middle of the second act.

But I’ve still got more to do.

You wanna know a secret?  I’m scared.  Possibly for the first time in my LIFE. 

Because in spite of my flippant insistence that I’m immortal and that I can still become a master of the universe, I’m staring down the calendars of life and wondering if I still can manage to squeeze it all in. The happy the relationship, the kids I always knew I’d have, the big budget projects, the glitzy award ceremonies, the hit singles, the international trips, the moments of absolute contentment sitting next to someone who loves and appreciates me enjoying some quiet family time and thinking, “yeah – this is what it’s all about.”

C'mon - with my killer genes it would be a crime not to replicate!

 I can still see it all – you know?  It’s like staring into a snow globe separated from this perfect reality only by glass and liquid and a sheen of swirling glitter.

I try to tell myself that time is all-concurrent and that in another plane of this very existence I already have everything that feels so far away from me now.

But I can’t enter that vision until I shatter the glass.  And breaking things gets messy.  So I guess what I’m saying is, I’m sorry I’ve been a mess.  I’m sorry if I inadvertently caused problems by dropping off the face of the earth.  I’m sorry if you took my recent avoidances personally – because in spite of the tired phrase – it’s not you – it’s me.  And now, it’s time for me to get back to me. 

And there is no better back for me than back to NYC.  I always said I’d be back – so I guess now’s as good a time as any to keep that promise. 

I won’t be leaving until September.  But it’s time to break out of the ruts I’ve been stuck in.  And as for the snow globe world – it doesn’t need to be gold as long as it still glitters…