I am creeping up on my birthday and I can't help but find myself in a bit of a funk. I used to be really good about planning a big gathering to celebrate with friends and stretch my creativity picking a theme. Last year however, I was on a plane to Maui. Great right?! Well could have been perfect but the week prior some life experience came up to leave me in a shitty head space and not feeling very celebratory. I almost didn't go.
This year, I have been hoping to go to New Orleans, one of my bucket list places. But everyday that goes by that I am waiting on checks, I am seeing the flights go up and up and up. This birthday is significant enough that I am finding myself being a bit of a Debbie Downer on myself. Because I am dwelling in the dark thought of "I am NOT where I wanted to be by now". I am financially surviving, not thriving. I am not further enough along in my "career". I am in a position where I can't just fly home on a whim for a birth or a death and I am left feeling guilty I can't be there more for my family. But here's the thing about all that. I made the choice to be here. Am I questioning my choice?....Yes, every few months when it feels like I am spinning my wheels going no where, I question my choice. Every time I get another year older and I have another anniversary of my move here, I question my choice. But now, my age is becoming more apparent. Mortality becomes more real when you lose a parent and people in your life start to pass on, or give up on their dreams, get married or have babies. And you look at your life and say...."What am I doing?"
What am I doing? That's my big birthday question. I don't want to worry about money anymore. I don't want to ignore the fact that I am half way to retirement. Could I even retire realistically? I don't want to ignore the fact that if I want kids I need to start considering that. But how does all of that fit into an acting career? People do it everyday. But I have no clue how I would. I have to spend money to make money. I am getting gigs that help me survive out here a little longer but how do I get over the hurdle of actually starting to thrive financially? People say it's hard. And it takes 10 years before you hit it big. Well, I am past 10 years. And I have worked pretty hard. I have cast and acted for all of those years. I have juggled multiple jobs, I have had relationships start and end, I have made contacts and lost some, I have added a handful of projects to my resume every year. So WHY am I feeling like I am in the same place as i was when I was 25, just a bit wiser and with slower metabolism? Am I loyal to a fault to the wrong people? Do I not network enough? Am I not being seen enough? Is it my look? Do I really need to chop my nose off to make it in this town? Am I a shitty actress and don't know it? Or is it just a slow season and I'm just getting restless? Am I meant to do this? Or am I meant to do something else? at this point if I am meant to do something else I wish God would just smack me in the face with it so I can deny what that is anymore!
Welcome to the minefield of the ACTOR, or even ARTIST in general. Obviously not a successful, financially stable one. They have their own set of problems. But for me, I find myself here again. And it's getting sickening. You try to give yourself the benefit of the doubt. "Well Nicole, You had a lot of trauma last year with your Dad dying and your Mom in the hospital", "You have been distracted just trying to catch up financially after that", "You are working through a lot in your relationship and that can be distracting", "You didn't have TV for years, so it's okay to watch so much now because you need to catch up on what's going on the in world", "If you take more casting work it might take away from your acting focus but you need to pay the bills somehow". Life happens to EVERYONE. I mean at what point do I call BULLSHIT on myself. WHAT THE HELL AM I HOLDING MYSELF BACK FROM, & WHY???
I am deathly afraid of settling in life. I am deathly afraid of giving up my dreams because I saw how miserable my Dad was if he wasn't playing music. We need our outlets. It's the air we breath. We need to be able to express ourselves, or it will bottle up and explode internally. All I want to do is reach people. Help people heal and transform through the projects and roles I take on. I was on that path and flowing pretty good. Leading Ladies was one of those dream projects that had a message and made some headway but then things fizzled for me again. Abducted was another project that talked about a subject matter that needs to be addressed in this country. But that didn't get much momentum either. There are only so many people in this industry that want to do the same and use there art to make change in the world, and a lot of them don't know me. As for the rest if it's not a guaranteed block buster money maker they aren't interested. So aside from stalking the people I want to work with, how do I get seen? I have been thinking more about the idea of making my own way. Shooting something close to my heart. But I hear the perfectionist critic in my head say, "you don't have a camera" and "you wouldn't know how to use one anyway", "you don't have money for a budget to get the equipment", "what the hell do you know about making a film?", "no one is going to take you seriously, "and people aren't going to want to help you or care what you have to say". I have a few projects, writing, pitches, songs, videos, that I started with a gusto but never completed because that voice gets louder and louder....then I jump onto another persons dream and help them fulfill that so I don't need to finish what I started for myself. INTERESTING EH?
Acting is the quick fix to that need to express. And dancing was that for me before Acting. I have a much bigger version of myself than I have allowed myself to be yet. I know that. I have been dabbling. Maybe because I am a Gemini and I get bored in one job to long. Maybe I am a great starter so I can enable a finisher. Maybe I am meant to be a social butterfly and sprinkle a little faery dust on everyone I meet. Maybe in some small way I do make other people's lives better by encouraging their dreams. I don't know. I hope so. But I want to play BIGGER. I want to be in a bigger game now. I'm just not sure how yet. And every spiritual practice I encounter reminds me the HOW is not my job!
Self Realization is not always easy or fun. And the realizing is only the first step. I have had these realizations before but don't always know how to change them. But I refuse to be a victim of circumstance. I have had my share of living in unideal circumstances. I wasn't ever given the perfect platform to take off from. But I am who I am because of what I was given and the choices I keep making for myself as an adult. Whether I regret them or not. I am where I am. And it's not a terrible place. It's really a pretty good place most of the time. But its not ideal for me at this age, when I was still in my 20s sure. So my focus needs to be raising the bar, raising my worth, and believing in myself more. Maybe I should be more like my character JUNE in Bobby & June: Impulse: If I have an impulse I SHOULD go with it, or like my character LUSH from #WIMMR- I could use a little bit of her delusion of grander, because the realist in me can be a naysayer, or I could learn from JANE from In The Night and take a blind leap of faith. This is what is so magical about storytelling. You get to be a part of another world that gives you a new perspective on yourself and life. I think that's why we all love TV & Movies so much. Sure it's nice to escape & just be entertained but to also need to feel and be moved. And sometimes a movie can even plant a seed of change in ourselves.
Every hero of every story has to go down to come up! There is a rights of passage or lesson in a journey before they live happily ever after. I think we can all get a Happily Ever After. And some days its hard to believe that because my dad gave up, before he got his. If we can hold tight while being whipped around in the tornado, let go when the current wants to takes us, and remember each tomorrow is a new day and a chance to be reborn, then we can & will get our happy ever after. All you have to do is make a new choice. If it ain't working TRY SOMETHING NEW. And on that note I am gonna go for a walk and shake it off!
Now in Honor of the Late Great BB. KING singing my theme song this month!
Happy Birthday Blues! (click on video below)
Shaking off the blues!
xo Nicole
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