Ups and Downs

I'm exhausted. Let me start from the beginning.

Unfortunately, I am not able to perform in Sherlock Holmes on Ice due to complications with my day job. We have been extremely short staffed of late for various reasons. I currently work at an assisted living center that specializes in memory care, in the engagement department. It is a very fun job with a lot of love and quirks and unique frustrations and excitement. Some days it is not like work at all, and other days it is extremely emotionally exhausting. The biggest drawback (apart from all the staffing craziness happening) is that we have to have people there all the time- I have to be there on weekends, which is obviously a big problem for doing shows and one of the reasons I was so glad to leave my barista job. When I was hired, I made it clear that I was in theater and would need weekends off to do shows, and it was agreed that I could do half days or work something out. That was before we had a massive leadership shift and lost a bunch of people in our department. It was incredibly painful to me to tell the stage manager and director that I would have to miss every weekend rehearsal except for tech days. I somehow ended up committing to a ton of different things and scheduling vacation for August before I even auditioned for the show, and I already had far more conflicts than I normally would. It was even more painful when the director told me what I should have admitted to myself in the first place- I had too many conflicts.

I have a bad habit of overworking myself. This is something that, both as a creative person and as someone pursuing a career in the performing arts, I need to recognize. I need to find a balance.

Today, for example, I left the house at 5:45 AM to drive 50 miles north to be a stand-in for a film. I got home at about 9:45 PM. It was a lot of work, and I sacrificed my day off- a day when I could have been resting, getting housework done, doing paperwork, and working on grad school applications. I'm really glad that I did this, because I've never worked on a professional film set before and it was an interesting, fun, and educational experience. But it would be crazy to do things like that all the time, and work full time at a day job, and prep for grad school, and go to auditions, and have a social life, family life, and healthy romantic relationship. When I graduated college, I panicked- I need to find a job, I need to be able to pay the bills, I can't make a living doing theater and I can't be financially dependent on my parents forever. Well, now I've done the full time day job thing, and I am done, at least for now.

I dedicate this fall to doing whatever it takes so that making art can be my day job. I'm done with making sacrifices for shows, done with limiting myself, and done with feeling guilty that I'm not at work on weekends that I have rehearsals. I don't want a day job. I want a career in the performing arts.