[Un]Drowning

Yesterday, as I was walking around campus, I was stopped by someone I knew from one of my classes and asked "why are you carrying that extension cable and power strip?" My response was a dejected look to the ground before replying "Honestly, I can't remember." It was just one of those moments where I was coming from one laborious task, on my way to another greater or equally laborious task, but thinking ahead to the one after that later in the evening, and all I knew at that moment of inquiry was that, at some point in the evening, there would be a moment where I'd need a long yellow extension cable and a power strip, and when that moment came, I'd sure as hell be ready for it.

Several weeks ago I began writing a blog post entitled "Drowning", which would have been about my struggles to keep my head above metaphorical water, what with trying to juggle seven classes at
CSU, being in a musical with an extremely demanding practice schedule, my continuing internship, working three days a week, being VP of a campus club, and several other small projects. Appropriately enough, I simply didn't have the time to finish writing the post, so tonight I've deleted the unfinished entry and decided to start fresh. This is me "undrowning".

I've gone through numerous changes in the past two years, and I'm finding one of the more puzzling of these changes to be my wanting to be busy. Like, all the time. Seriously, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. Back in high school I used to berate Laura (my ex) about why she would stack so many extra-curriculars on herself - my reasoning being that we were young, and that we should basically slack off as much as possible before the world forced us to go out and contribute to society. I lived most of the first half of college under that mantra. The change from then to now has been staggering.

I suspect a lot of it had to do with my "transformation period" (call it what you will) of the last couple of years - during traumatic periods in life, staying busy is often the only way to cope. But I haven't let up, and now I've got to figure out why. In fact, I keep piling on things for me to do, new projects, new places to explore and new things to teach myself. The upside of this is that I'm constantly finding myself in new situations and discovering new things about myself and the world around me. On the other hand, this is the first time I'm my life where I've had to schedule time for me to sleep, otherwise I'd probably work right through it.

Most recently, I just pulled off my first stint in a musical with our student theatre organization. That being my first musical, I also got a good look at the entire process involved in putting a play together, as the whole operation was entirely student run. It's funny to go to see a play and kind of be in the mindset that "things like this just kinda happen on their own"; it's entirely another thing to see the actual amount of work that goes into this type of project.

The stress and time demand was, I'll admit, taxing - to the point where this is the first time in many years where I've actually had to show concern about my grades in school, and keeping up with other responsibilities. In fact, I've only just now managed to catch up on work for my internship, and I'm still way behind on several smaller projects I am working on for clients - all this, and somehow the work still manages to be appearing faster than dissolving. As I've mentioned before, I have a hard time saying no to things.

The good news is, I think I'm going to pull through. Despite my struggles to keep my head above that metaphorical water, I'm just now starting to feel the pressure ease a bit as I slowly regain my humanity. The week of Halloween saw four separate parties for me (one of which I hosted,) as well as a trip to see Lion King (the musical) for my third time.

I am absolutely loving seeing all of my close friends on a regular basis again, and, almost as much as that, I'm loving having a chance to play video games again. It's been since July when I last enjoyed a new game, and Assassin's Creed is proving to be a great "congratulations, you made it through the musical" present to myself.

Soon, I will be enveloped once again. I don't know why I say that, but as the end of the semester looms, I feel CSU is cooking up something good, something to try and make me regret taking seven classes. And once that's done, what will the Spring hold for me? Yeah, I'm already looking ahead that far. There's another musical being held at the school which I'm strongly considering auditioning for, and I also have the opportunity to direct my own play for the student theater group (a one-act, Neil Simon comedy) should I choose to. That, on top of Spring being my final semester at CSUSM, should make for an interesting Spring. Will I be as busy (or, heaven forbid, busier,) as I am now? Time will tell.

Friends, if you're reading this, know that I haven't abandoned you. As Ren McCormack flamboyantly sings in the musical Footloose, "I can't stand still!" and I still really don't know why. But as long as I have this bug in me, this need to explore as much of this world around me as I can, I plan to take advantage of it. After all, I might not have the chance again, once the world forces me to go out and contribute to society.

Wow, that bookended itself nicely.

M.I.A.

Here's why:

I could try to talk about what I've been up to or how I've been feeling about life recently, but aside from the above, there really hasn't been much there - when I auditioned, the audition form asked "do you foresee any scheduling conflicts?", to which I wrote "if cast in this show, this play will be my life." I've been true to my word.

It's been a long journey, opening night is tomorrow, and there's only 3 weeks until it's all behind me. So, if you're reading this, please come see my show. Then you'll know what I've been up to. You won't regret it.