Here's a photo that the lovely and talented Sheyanne took of me at the Hotel Cafe show last weekend. The two of us used to go there so often, we affectionately referred to the place as the "Peach Pit" for a while...
I’ve been feeling a little down (or maybe a lot) ever since we got home to Iowa City last Saturday evening, after our whirlwind trip to Los Angeles, Houston, and Austin. It was so great to see our friends out in LA, but our time with each and every one of them was far too short. I miss everyone so, SO much. I miss the life we had there.
Not only that, but it still stings to know that I’m so far away from Los Angeles and all the acting work I could potentially be getting if I were only able to audition there. It’s so frustrating to be so far away from all the action. For the last couple months that I’ve been in school, I’ve been able to suppress the overwhelming mania that had taken hold of me while I was living in Los Angeles, but since travelling there and to Austin, the feelings have returned, come flooding back. Even as we were flying home from Austin, the depression was beginning to set in. I looked out the window and saw the endless brown fields below me and almost started to cry. Actually, maybe I did, a little. I just feel so hopeless being so far away.
I know that this experience I’m gaining is invaluable and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to go back to school, to finish what I started so many years ago, and to be really studying acting and doing real work for what feels like the first time ever, but I just have to keep reminding myself when I get so down, that this is what’s meant to happen for me. When we left, I didn’t understand why I had to go to Iowa. I thought I’d die in Iowa, fat and unhappy, with like 100 kids, without ever having acted in anything after leaving LA—but I was so wrong. I guess I just had to take a little detour to see the truth—that this is what I’ve supposed to have been doing all long.
This whole experience has been wonderful for me thus far—Alex even said the other day that he thinks this move was more for my sake so far, rather than his. It’s true that I’m learning so much about myself and about my acting by being here and working in classes and doing the monologue festival and working on this pilot and working on this play—it’s truly invaluable experience and I’m so grateful for the chance to do it all. I’m also pretty positive that being back in college at 30 years old, being cast by these wonderful young directors as “Middle Aged Woman,” or the 62 year-old “Mother,” is helping to build my character. (I mean, how hilarious is that?) It’s also incredibly humbling to have to do so much work in all my classes and deprive myself of sleep to write papers night after night, to fight for grades all over again. All this must be making me a stronger person, right?
…Oh yeah, and then there’s that whole leaving my awesome apartment in awesome LA and all my wonderful friends and starting all over in a brand new place where I know no one and no one knows me, with no money and no job and no family nearby-thing that’s been going on for the last eight months. I’ve never felt so isolated, honestly. It’s indescribably hard.
…But it’s all for the best, right?
