First of all, today’s post is gonna be this whole other thing…
After sobbing out a great deal of frustration on stage last night, I managed to get a good, deep sleep in while my little world of hopeless, on-going, terrible 2013 continued to snowball, despite all my best intentions to look on the positive side.
There almost WAS no positive side.
…Seriously, I did a pretty good job at blowing it off at the level of shrugged hopelessness that I did, giving NO inclination of just how drastically not okay things were becoming for me, privately.
…And there it was again, smacking me in the face immediately as I woke this morning…as I took my shower, put on my face…and worried.
…Worried at an absolutely toxic level. The level of Anxiety that I know from past experience, will (if unchecked) crash and burn my body, actually…physically…incapacitating it.
In the history of my life, I’ve had three really, really, really bad years.
…Years that took physical, emotional and life-changing repercussions…which is kind of a huge deal…and what’s kinda even huge-er, is the fact that the third year on that list, is only 8 days long, so far.
This realization is really terrifying.
…Even more so when you can feel your grip going, and you KNOW what happens next…
…Even more so when you’re opening four shows this week, have no mode of transportation, no time to see your shrink, no money to pay for it even if you got there, and no “worst-case-scenario” pill to take…because an entire production depends on your ability to completely lose your shit on stage every night, and not be turned into a flat-lined zombie.
What do you do then?
I knew, because of past training. But “knowing” and “doing” are these two WHOLE different things.
You need to let go.
…Which is by no means just a simple shrug-task.
“Letting go” to an OCD, Anxiety-ridden brain is like unclamping a steel vice with your naked fingers.
…But there is no other option, except the one where you cycle for months without sleep, lose all the feeling in your legs, start going emotionally comatose, and have to remember from time to time just to breathe.
…Because that’s how bad my Anxiety gets.
If I don’t listen to my body and use the tools I was taught from a stellar shrink…it literally just takes over. Which is actually horrifying to a degree beyond words. To be locked inside yourself, like a coma patient, who never sleeps and still understands what is happening around them, but cannot react, communicate or function to respond to it…or to anything…is not good, you guys.
…And yesterday, as one more very huge thing was slammed towards me, with bone-cracking force…I hung up the phone and sat there for a moment…staring at a piece of paper.
Just staring.
…I honestly don’t know for how long.
…But I knew I couldn’t “live” there, this was just my little shock-moment of saving grace. Much like Novocaine, it would wear off at some point and then the reality of the situation would hit with full force.
Now was where I needed to make the choice.
Right now.
While I stared at this piece of paper.
…Will I lose my shit…will this be the thing that pushes me totally over the edge?
Or not.
…You’d think that would be a simple choice to make, but I promise you: for people with mental incapacities, who have already been heavily emotionally compromised, it isn’t.
It wasn’t.
But I made the choice to do it anyway.
…I dug out abso-freakin-lutley everything I had ever learned while seated on that shrink couch, once upon a time. I mean, I really brought out the big guns. So it was good that no one was here at work, and strangely no incoming calls came through…so I could work, and work, and work, and work for hours and hours across the bulk of the afternoon, on what I needed to…in order to make it through that moment without totally losing my shit.
Like, for real.
…And I kept it steady, held my focus, and made it through…without a melt down, without the other repercussions that arise with it.
I just let go.
…’Member that old Holiday movie, “Miracle on 34th Street?” It may sound hoaky to you, but when about an hour ago a literal miracle happened…it was the first thing I thought of.
…A literal miracle…in that there was zero feasible financial solution: no lender, no bank, no union, no card company able to help with a grand-scale repair payment required at a 3rd of my car’s value…with four years of loan payments still to be paid on it…or it would never be driven again.
“Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.”
…It was all I had left.
So I did.
And friends and family that knew about it, did too.
…And you know what?
It worked, you guys.
It worked.
Even when it really, really wasn’t “supposed” to.
…So I guess what I’m saying is: A super grateful human is sitting here right now, trying to hold her shit together for totally different reasons than I did yesterday, at this same time.
I’m so incredibly thankful. And relieved. And still freaked out…but in a good way, in retrospect.
And I’m also really proud of Me.
I made it.
…Not that I did it “alone” by any means. But, I did it.
I did it.
…And, know what? Just in case it helps to hear it from someone else right now:
You can too.
~D
