Right now I feel slightly unstoppable. That is not to say that everything is going my way or that i am happy all the time. It is just a major shift from where I was a few days ago. Honestly, it feels like a lifetime ago. I think struggle can do that. I think living in a depressive state can make you feel like time has slowed down in a way. And at other times you feel it speeding up. You see your life racing by you and you feel like you are missing out on so much when in all reality, life never stops rolling along. It is a constant. In someways that is a good thing. In other ways, it’s not so much. Sometimes you just want to stop time for just a second so you can breath in a moment, hold it close just a little longer. At times it’s the contrary. I can remember being in school, wishing the day would fly by.
These are the times I want to hold on to. I take pictures, make mental notes, write more, make sure to speak kindly to more people, push myself to be the kind of person I know that I am but sometimes gets trapped behind this wall of darkness. Last night before I went on stage I said to one of my cast members “Shit, I forgot to take a Xanax!” She looked at me for a hot minute and I quickly explained “Nothing is going to go wrong or anything! Promise! It just helps me not shake as much on stage. You’re not going to find me curled up in a corner saying ‘I CAN’T GO ON’ stage because I am not medicated! I’m not quite that level of crazy actor!”
She sighed and then explained that literally the show she had done RIGHT BEFORE this one, they had a girl who did that. The director had no idea she had any mental health issues despite the fact that along with her panic attacks she was prone to seizures and running and hiding. PLEASE hear me say, I understand that mental illness takes on all forms and effects us all differently. But at some point you have to know your limitations and you have to know when it is time to make someone aware of what might happen in case of an emergency.
Regardless, I understood her concern but was glad that I could comfort her nerves. Later I explained my condition in full because, when I am not in one of my fogs, I am not one to hide. I wear all of my conditions proudly, like badges of honor. I don’t bring them up randomly. But if they come up, like they did, I don’t mind sharing. This was a chance for me to open up to a person who could be an awesome new friend. New friends are hard when you are in your bubble of depression. But when you are feeling as I am now, new friends are exciting.
Month: January 2018
It’s time for a come back
I have not been writing much mainly because mommy life, school life, wife life, home life, and actor life have been weighing on me. I love all of the different hats I wear but they can be time consuming.
I am SUPER excited about the upcoming production of “Romeo and Juliet” that I know I have mentioned in previous posts. After a long hiatus from acting to direct, I am happy to be back tackling one of my dream Shakespearean roles, the Nurse. We are still in rehearsals but we are nearing our tech week. For those who don’t know what that means, that is when we add the technical elements (lights, sound, costumes, etc.) to our production. For us actors, it’s like the final layer to our work! It is always super exciting. For now, here are some pictures from our rehearsals. As we go into our tech and then into performances, I will post more so you can see how a show can really come alive!
Not really sure. Think I may have just found my hand?
Nurse and Mercutio at the Capulet party
The Nurse at the Capulet party
Nurse tells Juliet of her plans to help Romeo get to her
Me and Jules
Our poster
Nothing to do with the show. Just a great meme from my favorite Blogger.
Pictures by Marlene Photos
The spoon days
I say it ironically. Like those people who talk about “The Salad Days” referring to the good times in life.
Spoon days are not so good for me. They come out of nowhere and with no warning. Today was one of those days. I slept, undisturbed until almost 1. Even when I woke up, I still could not quite make myself function. Even now, the first part of my day is a blur. I know at some point I went out to get my mothers medications but I also know that I got lost on the way home. When I got home I told Noah that I had a limited amount of energy. I could make dinner for our son before we went to a friends party, or I could rest with the hopes that when I woke up I would be well enough to go. Either way, there was no guarantee I was going to be any help or any fun today. Noah, being the amazing man that he is, decided that he wanted me to rest in hopes that we could all go out together. No matter what, I know he would have supported me.
Luckily, I was able to rally and went out and had a wonderful night. I am still tired but we had a well overdue nice night.
Now, it’s raining. It’s so peaceful. The rain runs down the drain at the corner that is right beside our bedroom. It’s such a calming sound. At the end of a spoon day, the sound of rain somehow helps wash clean the emotional struggle. I have always loved the sound of rain and a good storm. It is the perfect way to end a spoon day.
Shakespeare talk
I am currently working on a production of Romeo and Juliet. The concept behind it is very different so it has made it a lot of fun to be a part of. The funny thing is that now I find myself constantly throwing out lines from the show or trying to put modern text into Shakespearean text.
We all know the famous quotes; that list is ridiculous and I’m just not going to go there. And that he is responsible for so many of the words that we use today like assassination, flawed and bedroom. But my FAVORITE is finding things like this!
Did you know Shakespeare penned “Go girl!”? Who knew! And my personal favorite “I will take him down…” . Hell yeah Will! You better take someone down and out. He was feisty. I also have grown an affection for trying to figure out how things would be translated into Shakespearean text. So we have : “That’s what she said” becomes ” Tis what she quoth”. (Although, I think my friends translation is better!) “Go on with your bad self” becomes “Go forth with your lack of valor self”. And my personal favorite ” I’m on it like a fat kid on a cup cake” becomes ” I’m all ov’r t liketh a bacon-fed peat on a cuppeth cake”
If my director is reading this, the entire post translates into “I has’t been studying all of mine own lines and I gage I shall knoweth all mine own lines at Mondays rehearsal!”
What up!
I know I have not written in a while but I can finally say that I am slowly crawling out of the fog. It wasn’t so much that I was hiding as I just did not want to post sad depressing posts all the time.
I honestly don’t have much to say. I had chemo today and I had to receive a transfusion as well. It was fairly standard. I do have news on the theatre and work front but honestly I am running on no sleep in the past 24 hours so I am going to have to go to bed. I just wanted to put something out their saying that I AM HERE!
It won’t go away…
Today was bad/good. I could not make myself move. I wanted to get out of bed and I could not. I slept for 14 hours. It hurt to move. I kept hearing Eli in the other room and I wanted him so badly but I couldn’t pull it together enough to get out of bed. I am a bad mother. I just don’t know how much longer I have before he notices. He is 20 months. Right now, Noah loves me enough to cover all of his general care but I know he can only handle so much more before he caves. I am a bad wife. I have a really rare cancer that attacks my immune system and my energy level and it is hard to tell if it is my depression or my PNH attacking me.
Somehow I managed to rally at about 3:00. I forced myself to do something. Something other than feel sorry for myself. Something other than let the depression win the rest of the day. So I went out with Noah and some friends. I realized when I got out that I had forgotten my medication and tried not to panic but I genuinely had a good time. But after a while I felt myself forcing my way through things. I kept telling myself to go. Friends were telling me to come along and I did because I felt the need to push. So I did. But it was a struggle.
But I made it. I hate to put it that way because it sounds like I don’t like my friends but I do. I want to have friends, I just don’t want to socialize. I know that makes no sense, but it’s how I feel. I love the people I love. I don’t want to be lonely, I just want to be alone. One day I may live a normal life. My meds will balance me out perfectly and I will not have any days like this. Until then, I will just have to keep pushing through.
Snow King!
This week has been filled with snow! One of our dear friends has been trapped with us and as much fun as we have been having we are all suffering from some cabin fever. No lie, even I am about to go a little crazy in my own house, I cannot imagine being stuck in someone else’s house! But she has been a GREAT sport about everything and we really have been having so much fun. One day we took Eli out in the snow and he had more fun than I honestly thought he would! We were not out for long but we pulled him around on the little sled and he had so much fun watching Gwen run and romp in the snow like she does. He even face planted at one point and we were so sure he was going to break out into tears but instead he stood up and gave us this face:
If that’s not a little man loving some snow, I don’t know what is! We really did have a blast playing with some amazing friends and family (and our 4 legged family).
What they don’t tell you
What they don’t tell you is how hard it is when you hear loved ones in the other room and you can’t make your body move out of bed.
How embarrassed you are that you have slept so late.
That there will be nights you cannot fall asleep and although you were not up crying, there is this darkness, this feeling, that will not allow you to let go and sleep.
How much you are afraid your son is going to remember you as the parent that is never there and when they are they hear “Don’t wake mommy. She doesn’t feel good.”
How much you just want to walk in the other room but feel like you owe the world a HUGE apology for being the way you are.
That there will always be a fear that no one will really understand the way you are no matter how hard they try. They will accept and love you, but there will be days they do not understand and you live in fear this will be one of those days.
That there will be people who think you need to just get over it.
There are going to be times where you are going to do something small and stupid that any normal person would do and you are ready to take a running jump off the highest place possible.
That there will be times you would rather sit in bed and text your husband, wait for him to feed your son, put him down for a nap and then have him come tell you that the world is an okay place today before moving.
When you can hear them talk about you in the next room. You just cannot hear what they are saying.
There will be times that your body psychically hurts from head to toe. You will feel like you have been beat up. And you have been. By yourself.
When all you can do is cry. It’s not what you want, but it’s all you can do.
What they don’t tell you is how much this really hurts.
Fighting with friends
Today was a great distraction from dark.
Today we filmed the promotional video for “Romeo and Juliet”. The director had asked if I would be willing to put together a script and another local theatre technician to come in and film it. She wanted lots of action shots with short snips of dialogue. Not to pat my self on the back, but I was pretty proud of the script I had put together. It was difficult to get what I saw happening in my head onto the page so that everyone else would understand what I was looking for. I think I managed to do it, to some degree.
The best part was it meant that we got to do the the fights a few times. That was loads of fun! Stage combat is always a blast and my combat partner was on point today. We learned the fight in roughly 10 min and we were off and rolling before we knew it. We were in sync the entire time which is always important. Everything was safe and in control. Then I got to watch my friends fights which was awesome as well. I AM NOT a violent person! But I have a lot of respect for actors who can make fights look believable. In stage combat there is a fluidity that exist. It is almost like a dance. Each person must move and step at just the right time in just the right way to make it look real or else everything becomes dangerous and then it is no longer fun. Then it becomes scary for anyone to watch. There must be an element of closeness with people doing stage combat or else it loses all emotion. Then, it is no longer believable. It was nice to watch my friends “dance” through these fights almost effortlessly. We all took one deep breath and a fight that involved 12 people broke out with each step carefully placed so as to not over step the next. It was beautiful in it’s own dark way.
Maybe that’s why I could see the beauty in it.
I’m back (sort of)
For those who are followers I’m sorry I have not been writing as much right now. This darkness does not want to give way to light and there is very little I want to write about. I don’t want to continue to post overly emotional posts that will only demonstrate how detrimental depression can be. If you have been following for a while you will know that when I wrote everyday, there were times when I would write about all of the emotional downfalls that I experienced. As I am organizing my past posts into folders, it is hard to see just how hopeless I felt sometimes. Sometimes it is almost therapeutic to know that I have been there before and managed to live through it. Right now, it is just a task to keep me distracted. As are most things right now. I keep my days as busy as I can so that I don’t think about just how sick I am. Sometimes it gets the best of me and the mental becomes physical.
I hope that soon I will be back with the light that I know is inside of me. That the part of me that I love so much and treasure so dearly will embody me again. I will come back a healthy person, I know it. I am just sick right now.
Lets just leave it at that.
Dancing In The Rain 