Never Looking Back

I'm sitting in the middle of multiple projects, some dominating the schedule, others taking a moment to breathe, and a couple more sitting to either side of me, with notes and tasks waiting for me...just waiting for attention like a hungry child. I'm ultra aware of all of them, and here I am, a full six months after I promised myself I wouldn't drive my schedule to an insane level of drowning in schizophrenia. I only had two shows to support and worry about in the last quarter of 2005. I now have four.

When this kind of thing happens - and if you know me well, you know that it's unavoidable - the urge to reach back to my past for support is distracting. The load I carry with me becomes an object of examination.

So I stop...for one weekend. I think about where I'm spending my energy. I think about how I'm spending my time. I take slow, deliberate steps towards things I have to do rather than things I'm expected to do. Where there's waste of effort on my part, I cut off excess. That resulted in breaking off contact with one person tonight, a decision that wouldn't be obvious if not for the deletion of one friend on MySpace. (When did this website become a social resume?) It becomes a measurement of who and what is part of my future, versus what only exists in my past. If you're a friend here, you're obviously not merely a part of my past.
Look around you. Who is real, and who is a ghost of your past? Who will exchange with you, and who has already moved on?

If this kind of sounds like a sequel to previous blog postings, or maybe a recurring theme, rest assured that this is one of the only side effects of chasing this manic creative life. It's a cycle of re-evaluation and awareness that can, on one hand, make me a little cold and blunt, but on the other hand, where I conserve energy, I give more of myself to the parts of my life that remain. It's hard to let go sometimes, but I find comfort in the fact that my life is full of change. As I just wrote in a play, the holes and cracks that sometimes form in my life will often be filled with surprising things. That cycle keeps moving forward, churning the ground after the harvest and always waiting for seeds to be planted and fresh roots to dig deep. I pull out the weeds, the dead plants, and I keep the soil fresh. I think that makes me an optimistic gardener.

To the people who truly exist in the present, I feel you here with me. You are a part of the safe feeling I create from, part of what makes me hungry to try something new. You help justify the life I've chosen, and in my constant re-evaluation, I never lose sight of you.