Getting Through and Learning Lessons

There are just days in your life when you feel completely overwhelmed by things you didn't even realize were weighing on your conscience. Sometimes they're a few really big things, or a ton of small things - sometimes it's a combination - but all it takes is one tiny trigger to set you off, something that you may even be completely over even as you get upset by it, and all the walls you didn't know you'd built come crashing down.

Today was one such day.

This may be sharing too much information, or it may only worry whoever reads this (if anyone does), but let me assure you now that I am totally fine. Sometimes you just need to let off a little (or a lot of) steam and let the whole thing blow over. I have done just that, but for about two hours today, I was a mess. And through these two hours, I learned a couple important things about life.

1. It's always important to know who you trust. In my time of need, I was able to turn to people that I knew would only be able to help me, to talk things through and to point out things about myself and my life that I hadn't even noticed. It is so easy to take for granted the people that really care about you, to just forget that they're there and that you could learn something from them. Don't let yourself do that. Embrace what they do for you. And thank them profusely.

2. Never, ever stop taking care of yourself. Being in college or having a full time job is not an excuse to not eat relatively well or to sleep enough. Everyone lets things like that fall by the wayside when things get extremely busy, myself included, it's too hard not to sometimes. But there comes a time when a giant warning sign pops up telling you that you're pushing yourself too hard, and days like today are that big slap in the face you need to wake you up.

3. Have a mental escape. Whatever it is that's eating you up inside, whatever worry or care you have that something won't turn out right or what have you, let it all go. Set aside a time for you to do something mindless or distracting. I'm lucky that I have rehearsal to go to every night, where I'm able to be someone else entirely for about 3-4 hours, but not everyone has that. Build these things into your schedule if you have to. Even if you feel like you don't have the time to spare, do it anyway. Just don't sacrifice sleep for it, okay?

I dearly love all the people in my life, and I dearly love my life. I just have to remind myself occasionally that things aren't always as bad as they seem, and that I will, in the end, turn out all right.

Don't you forget that, too.

Crunch time

You forget when you're working on a new work that, sure, the first part might be all fun just reading new scripts and working on music at your leisure, but there comes a point when you've gotta get stuff done and you hardly have any time in which to do so. I think Guarding Gold Street has hit its crunch time.

Guarding Gold Street is the musical we're doing this fall, a new work by Sean Michael Flowers and Marya Spring Cordes. The students of Auburn who have been working on this show are using these five weeks that we have to workshop and explore. Mostly we're just there working to help Sean figure out how he really wants the show to be. But it's safe to say that while it will always be play, the work aspect has just hit us. Mostly off book by Monday and Tuesday. Completely off book by Friday. Yikes!

But honestly, I'm not sure any of us would really want it any other way. What else would we be doing with our weekend anyway? (Oh wait, there's a football game on Saturday...?)

Either way, it's wonderful to be part of such a collaborative effort. The first time I did a new show, A Beautiful End, I was a freshman and I wasn't on stage a lot, so I'm not sure I fully appreciated what we were doing for Christian or how collaborative of an effort it really was. This time around, so much about the approach is the same, but it feels entirely different. Maybe it's my added age or the nature of the show or the fact that it's a smaller, ensemble cast. I don't know. Whatever it is, though, I know it's going to be an incredible experience. Probably the most important thing I've ever worked on. And if I've already said that on this blog, I apologize, but it couldn't be a more accurate statement to how I'm feeling right now.

Making Connections

I had a breakthrough this week. I don't know if it was the magic of my birthday, or if it was a culmination of everything that I've learned in college up until this point, but something clicked. We were in rehearsal for Guarding Gold Street, doing our third read-through with the newest script, and there was something about the language and scene leading up into my speech and the frustration my character was feeling and the way I personally was feeling about the characters, that when I started to speak, I broke down. I have never, ever, cried like that in a performance of a show, in a rehearsal of a show, watching a show, never. And in the moments of that monologue leading up until when I lost it, I had a subconscious battle with myself. Part of me, the classic, old Madeleine part of me, said, "Don't you dare lose it, you keep that down!" But what's most important about this moment in my life is that the new, riskier, freer me overruled the old me. It said, "No. You are allowed to show real emotion. You are allowed to share this with everyone. Take the risk and go for it."

So I did.

And examining that moment with Joey today led me to an important discovery. Yesterday, my 21st birthday, is going to be the day that I can look back on when I'm older and I will be able to say, "That was the day I became a professional. That was the day, the exact moment, that I finally understood what everyone talks about when they describe how it feels to really act."

And I never want to go back from that. I want to feel that all the time. We can only pray that I am able to find a career doing just that.
But for now, I'm just thankful that I caught that rare glimpse. I'll never forget it. 

Inspiration.

This. A hundred times yes.

Applying yourself.

I think this week's big revelation has just been that if I apply myself to something, I've found I can actually get it done in a timely fashion. This is actually a bigger struggle for me than I think people realize, because I'm extremely lazy. If given the choice to get up and get some work done or to stay in bed and watch Netflix, I'll usually choose the latter. That was okay for the first three years of college (okay, it actually wasn't okay then either, but I could get away with it much easier), but this year I'm leaving. I have to actively search for auditions and get my school work done and memorize memorize memorize and really focus on attaining any sort of goal for after graduation. I can't afford to be lazy anymore. I realize that I have a pretty firm grasp on who I am right now, and when I leave this place, that is probably going to change in radical ways. I'll be more confused than ever. So getting used to working hard now is going to only increase my chances of getting up on my feet after May 5 and on my way to rediscovering who I am.

I've already been making some strides toward getting more focused and applying myself, and I don't know why, but I'm always shocked when it works. The more I force myself off tumblr (life-sucker) and facebook and the more I actually do my work, the prouder I am of myself and what I accomplish. The stronger this skill gets, the more chance I have of being successful, at least marginally, in this career choice.

Oh, life. Why must you be so difficult?