Growth: (verb) the act of using art to change the world.

It's been an incredible week.
Sure, there've still been those moments when I'm aggravated and wishing for change, but then again that's just growing.  A tree bends and shapes itself towards the sun, and that's what I'm trying to do.
And art - that is my sun; my source of life, that which allows me to photosynthesize and recreate myself into the person I want to become.

And this has been a successful week.

For one, I've started writing a play that I actually really love.  I've been working on it before and after work, which actually has given a sense of accomplishment to my day.  I'm often too exhausted to do anything at all after my nine hour shifts....but knowing that I've worked on creating a world...it's much more satisfying than then watching something on Netflix until I fall asleep.

Speaking of writing, this week I also read aloud some of my poetry.  It was on a stage and everything, and I don't even want to acknowledge how long isn't been since I've stood on one.  It was very assuring.  My friend invited me to a Galentine's Day event, with face-painting, arts and crafts, friendship bracelets, snacks and art; a.k.a. it was dream.

There was a lot of stand up, one incredible conceptual art piece presentation revolving around Tinder and musical performance, and me.  The day of I still didn't know what to read.  I realized I'd forgotten a notebook with most of my writing at a friend's place.   I considered reading something from this blog, but most of my posts are a tactful organization of my stream of consciousness; my poetry is different.  More vulnerable.

And then I remembered something I started back in October: I have a daily planner but instead of deadlines and appointments, my agenda is a poem.

Back in high school, an incredible teacher taught us to see art through the scope of "Creator vs. Interpreter": to put it simply, to do a play I made is creator.  To do Chekhov, a friend's work, or something made by literally anyone else, is interpreter.
And the goal of my planner was to hold myself accountable for doing both each day.
It's like an artist's version inhaling and exhaling.

Thus I sifted through some of my exhalations from the last four and a half months, and chose four poems which I read in three chunks and called it Love in Three Parts.  Don't worry, they're at the bottom of this post.

And loves, it was incredible.  I was in a room full of strangers with the exception of the one friend who invited me.  And I get insecure in big groups.  I know those of you who know me don't believe this, but I do; especially when they all know one another.  It's not noticeable to them, but part of me retreats.  So to go from that, to someone speaking my truths, I felt the room change.  The way they saw me, the way they saw themselves; like the heat coming on after the streak of a cold breeze.

It was a moment I don't think I will forget.

And to seal off the powerful week, last night I saw my friend's production.  He directed an original play called Subverted, which was so powerful and appropriate that it was haunting.  It's the type of show I want high-schoolers dragged to, not realizing how much this will shape the person they decide to become.  I heard the audience struggle to suppress their "mmm"s of empathy as we collectively fought tears.  It was exemplary of what theatre is meant to be, and the power that art has to change the world for the better.

I am inspired.  I am motivated for the first time in awhile, feeling finally that art isn't taking a backseat to survival (and seeing as I make art to survive, it's been a vicious cycle when it's not at my forefront).   It's reviving to know that my day has consequences, that I'm not just repeating the same things over and over for paycheck...that I'm part of helping the world grow.  It means there is light again.  The sun was obstructed and I was withering.
Now I must regain my strength, and blossom.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Grief, Guilt and Gratitude

            Few things feel as futile as having friends get mad at you over text message.

And before I continue, I just want to say that this isn’t a passive aggressive post about anyone in particular; it’s just me discussing something I’ve experienced with many people over the last year.

            I don’t know why I’ve lost so many friendships in the last 365 days. 

            It could be that five years on the east gave me a different energy from the west, making us incompatible.  And then it could be that this year on west coast soiled my east coast aura. 

            Perhaps it’s that I’ve made serious judgements about where I am and where I need to be, and perhaps some friends falsely assume that they are the source of the negative realizations.  

            Maybe I’ve changed into someone meaner than I used to be, unintentionally pushing away those that are trying to help.  Or maybe being sick required more of my friends than they wanted to take on.

            Potentially I’m not clear enough in what I need; or potentially I’m too clear in what I expect.

            It may be that I didn’t give back enough to those that I love; or it may be that I love my friends more than they can handle.

            It’s possible that people expected me to be stronger than I’ve been, or it’s possible that my determination could be seen as stubbornness rather than strength.  

            All I know is that I’m an outsider, who’s ready to move again, trying to be low maintenance, certain of what I need from my friends, prepared to love them unconditionally, and trying to regain my strength after a really rough year.

            And somehow something in that has caused me to lose a lot of those that I love.

            And these texting fights are like trying to have a conversation in the middle of a musical number.  The orchestra is set to play on no matter what happens, the rhymes have been decided, the key has already determined the mood, and I have a strict time constraint in which I must blurt out my responses.  I am not in control, the outcome has already been decided; there is a musical theme introduced at the beginning of the conversation that continues until the finale and the final curtain of our friendship.  I wish instead to take my time, like a chess game consider every possible response, with the lowered stakes of trying to figure out which door on the right is a friend’s bathroom.  But that is not the setting.

            And when the music starts, I don’t know how to win.  Arias of sadness and mistreatment are being belted at me; and at that point, how can I interject?  It’s already their number, their objective is decided, and no attempt at harmony can change what they hear as discordant.

            And so I lose another member of my cast, and have to sing on a little bit louder now.

            I don’t blame people for leaving.  I’ve lost enough in my life, and gained enough too, to know that the resentment only drains me in the end.  I know that my life is more complex than most, that my stories can seem to overshadow others’ hardship, and that anyone in my life, no matter how much I love them, can leave indefinitely.  I don’t have a blood family, but I’ve borrowed people’s parents, always knowing that they weren’t fully mine yet loving them fully; and then I’ve gone years without speaking to them.  And to be upset would somehow imply that they did more harm than good.  But I am grateful for the love that has been shown to me, I have never for a moment taken that for granted.  

            Even when I feel alone, that doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped caring for the moments that other’s were there.  It’s like a social appetite.  Even if I had a big breakfast, I can still be hungry for dinner.  And that doesn’t mean that I didn’t appreciate breakfast, nor would’ve been better off without it.  It just means that I need little more.  And since my appetite can be bigger than those that have a consistent family to lean upon, sometimes I might go hungry.

            It’s a solitude that I have embraced.  It was the price of my freedom when I emancipated myself from an abusive relationship six years ago; a decision I haven’t regretted for a single second.

            I’ve made peace with who I am; with my different personality, different outlook on life, different obstacles and different circumstances.

            It’s only when I lose someone that I question who I’ve become.  In the realm of social appetite, it’s like turning allergic to a favorite food.  “What happened?  Was it something I did?  Could it have been avoided?” I ask, and yet once that allergy has been detected, it’s too late and that friend almost never comes back.

            I’m very susceptible to what my friends say about me.  The opinions of people that I don’t like me float away, but when a loved one sees me in such a negatively light?  I no longer believe in who I thought I was.

            I never deliberately try to lose anyone.  So it can feel unfair, that they don’t  understand, like I don’t deserve the words they are firing at me.  But I grew up without being allowed to have opinions.  So I turn to my friends and ask if it really is my fault.  Only then do I trust that there isn’t a fatal flaw within me that poisons every one of my relationships.  And yes, there is a part of me that is terrified at what I would do when that last friend leaves; to whom I would ask “was this really my fault?”

            But this is not my reality.  This when I remind myself of those that still love me.  That though I’ve cried at yet another end-ship aria, my stomach pained with guilt and social starvation, that still there are those that love me.  And yes, maybe their song will one day come, but they love and know me now, and there’s no need to mourn what is still alive.

            So though it hurts to lose those that I’ve loved and I’ll never not miss them being in my life, that doesn’t mean that I have to starve myself from upbeat friendships that I have left.