Would you like to know something? I spend much of my days feeling struck by sudden inspiration, which I then mentally file away for use at a later date.
When things calm down again, I’ll put that on the blog, I say, or, I can use that in my next performance…that I really work hard and prepare for.
Last week, I cried in not one but two of my acting classes, because I simply could not level with the truth. While one teacher reminded me she was quite capable of embarrassing me as I denied I found my scene partner attractive (which was, frankly, so much worse because he knows he is), the other informed me that I am, “a very great actor with no control over her abilities.”
I hate points of no return. I hate summits. I hate tipping points.
I hate that I have nearly all the words and knowledge and understanding rotting in my head and no practical skills with which to implement them.
Because, you see, I (quite naively) have already decided there is a clear path of struggle for me – which is to say, I have identified without hesitation that Thing which I will likely have to manage and battle and beat back my entire life. Hold your pity, there is an affliction that gnaws at everyone – some in my circle are loathe to stand up for themselves, some perhaps too righteous, some extremely justified in their positions but completely indefensible in how they express them.
I explained this to my mother just the other week – that I have found the post-graduate transition more than a little awkward because I feel I have, through a series of debatably fortunate events and a fair few hours on the couch of a shrink, acquired an empathy that informs much of my life (though not as much as I would like. I am regrettably too human in that respect). I like to think I have a clear understanding of why we act the way we do, why we fail, why we succeed, what growth entails and why we reject it. I say this not in a philosophical, academic way, but in the sense that I truly believe I have been endowed by God with the gift of reading emotional life.
A fat lot of good it’s done me.
Of course, my folly very well could be that I think I have this great wealth of knowledge and emotional sagacity, and yet in a few years’ time come to find out I actually do not. I am sure to some degree I will open a door to that reality sometime in the future, though for my sanity I will presently believe the fall will not be more of the Jack-and-Jill sort than that of Icarus.
Therefore, while my friends go about learning how to Adult, having already acquired some of the basic life skills necessary to function properly in the Adult World, I find myself talking them through difficult days – which is all well and good, except that I am not in school to be a therapist, and while I can look objectively at a situation and provide counsel, I rather struggle to cook three meals a day, stay on top of my email inbox, regulate my sleeping schedule, and say no to the fourteenth fun outing of the month on account that I do not, contrary to what I seem to believe, have unlimited financial freedom.
I have had precious few friends who reject passive-aggression in favor of directly expressing their discontent. I have had almost no experience acting as my own supervisor while also making sure my room is livable and my socks are clean and that I have a happy social life while also avoiding distraction. I am also – regrettably – single.
All of which, of course, might be moderately able to be handled, if I were pursuing a stable career path with such trivial things like health insurance and dental coverage and an actual salary. Instead, I write a check for class that demands I drive to a strip mall where bullet casings are frequently found on the ground of the parking lot, which I promptly ignore so that I may enjoy three hours of crying and crawling on the floor pretending to be a cat. Sometimes – if I’m very lucky – I am told I’m completely worthless but to keep at it because someday I could be legendary.
How perfectly delightful.
But knowing what needs to be done does not move the needle. Anywhere. Remembering to buy apples and toothpaste comes at the eleventh hour – and HEB closes at eleven. You’d think oil changes were a faux-pas by how little I think about them. And acting – good Lord – the thing I care too much about, it may very well be the German enigma code, and I am not a mathematician. I have a film degree. I only know about enigma at all because I watched a movie.
There were a few years where I felt a victim of the unfortunate events that seemed to be constantly unfolding at every turn. I no longer identify as such. I think, as I have grown up, I can look back on difficult years of my life and take responsibility for where I was stupid and nineteen and in a tough way, and where life just happened to happen to me. Which is to say, I have stopped defining myself by what I felt was unfortunately dealt to me, stopped even being humbly “grateful” for its teachings, stopped deflecting shame, and instead have moved on toward a kind of neutrality for all that I formerly used as an excuse to uplift a shield to the world. Life is life. Better and worse things are surely to come my way before I meet my Maker. And I will make better and worse choices before then, too.
So, why, I scream (often in the car and to the soundtrack of “All Too Well 10 Minute Version Taylor’s Version), if I can put words to my own progress, if I can identify my shortcomings and diagnose all my own failures, if I can look with kind objectivity at my own heart and the people who I have been touched by, why for hell’s sake can’t I just do the damn thing?
Because I am observant and intelligent, I understand what is being taught to me. As a performer, I watch movies and television shows, even TikToks and commercials, and the learning clicks into place. I see where a juvenile choice has been made, where a master is crafting her performance. I know what led to an ultimately terrific or unappealing decision, and why the choice was made. I can see when a person has not relinquished control, and I am in awe when she is able to do so. I think with great sophistication about the stories I see and live. I watch my friends interact with one another, study their movements, try my best to catch unsaid subtleties and how they are communicated. I work all the time.
And for what? To continue to protect myself from that which no longer bothers me? To perpetuate a story of victimhood for some ridiculous water-under-the-bridge from four years ago? I think not.
I am so frustrated, Reader. I will be so brilliant one day and so abysmal the next. And true, I am a very good abysmal actor. I am a very hire-able, like-able, use-able abysmal actor. But who wants to feel abysmal when they can feel the greatest depths of despair, untold ecstasy, cold terror, and crawl in bed shaking with exhaustion and satisfaction when it is all over? And also pay her credit card bill on time?
I know I have not yet shifted my focus from the pursuit of perfection to the pursuit of experience. But dammit, it is hard. Maybe if my parents had told me to limit my dreams, curb my enthusiasm, cap off my passions, I would not want to chase the unattainable all the time.
Usually, you may know, I end my rantings and ravings with some uplifting, and so I will try to be such-and-such, and maybe you can try to do this-and-that, and the world may burn but at least the colours will be pretty to look at. I have no such tailpiece for today. Today, my parting words are – 23 sucks, please cast me, I will work and work until I am great and then complain here that I have no idea what I am doing. And please send wine, preferably pink and cheap.
Love,
Lettie Anne