Not a lot has changed

Well, it's been three and a half months since my last post, and not much has changed. I'm still fat, lonely, and bored, and trying to keep myself busy enough so none of those things bother me. Since April, the play that I was music directing finished, my students' opera was a success (end of year testing not so much), went to a few education trainings, and got myself involved in a couple of other shows. I'm going to music direct another children's show (Cinderella's Glass Slipper). I am also singing in the chorus of a big band tribute. After that, I've decided to give myself a pseudo break from show biz. I'm going to only play in the community symphony: since I broke my collar bone in February, I haven't even touched my bass, and I'm finding more and more that I miss it terribly.

There are three main reasons that I'm breaking from theater for a short while. First, my snowflakes are melting faster than I can collect them (see a previous post about snowflakes being goals, or some such nonsense); I need to set, and keep better goals. Second, as I already mentioned, I miss playing in the symphony. And third, I need to spend less time with a particular person.

So, snowflakes. Instead of doing one a week (I only managed for about 3 weeks before), I will add a new goal every month. As tomorrow starts a new month, I am starting a new goal! My goal for the month of August is to exercise for an hour a day. It doesn't have to be all at once, but it can, and it doesn't have to be one type, but it can, it just has to be an hour. I'm signing up for a membership at the local fitness center where they have pools year round (better for the arthritis), and trainers and such. It's an expense, but I think it's worth it. I'm not going to think about adding another goal until maybe the 3rd week in August, so that I can focus on this one.

Symphony playing. I didn't realize until it was gone how much playing in the symphony meant to me and helped me, nor how much I looked forward to it every week. I miss being surrounded by good music, and good musicians. I miss the opportunity to improve my talents and participate in a performing group on the stage. So, tomorrow, I will get the bass out and try some scales. I've got about 6 weeks before rehearsals start for the next season, and I need to get back into shape.

Avoiding someone. That doesn't sound like a great plan, I know, but here's what happened: I fell in love. I fell in love and I fell hard. The problem is, this man will never love me because he's gay. I knew it when I started having feelings for him, but I ignored it because he didn't tell me. I thought that we were good enough friends that, surely, he would have told me about something that big. But he didn't, so I ignored all the signs and nagging little thoughs. After spending so much time with him, I couldn't keep my growing feelings to myself. Finally, I confessed to a mutual friend of ours that I might have a crush on him, and she told me that it wasn't a good idea, and why. I felt so betrayed. I thought I'd finally found a friend, regardless of romantic attraction, whom I could trust completely, and, of course, he didn't feel the same way about me. Because I trusted him to trust me, I got my heart broken. No one knows, I didn't tell anyone how I really felt. Besides him, I didn't have anyone to trust with something like this, and I couldn't tell him. And, because of my involvement in theater, I still have to spend a lot of time with him. Do you know how hard it is to get over someone when you have to be with them all the time?

I hope I have enough distractions to keep my mind off my "friend" for the next little while that I still have to be around him. I still want, desperately, to be his friend, he means so much to me. I don't want to stop loving him, I just need to stop being in love with him. I need to get away. I need to involve myself with other activities and organizations that do not include this individual. I need to find myself again and pray that one day I will have the courage to trust again. It will take some time I know. Everytime I get hurt it takes longer than the time before to heal. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I fall for gay guys all the time, but I do seem to fall for men who aren't interested in me. I open up, I tell them, or someone, how I feel, and then I lose people who I thought were friends and I get hurt. Life's a lonely road when you have to travel by yourself.

But, the road of life doesn't stop to let people off, you just have to keep going along, no matter what roadblocks are in your way, and no matter what scenic attractions try to get you off the path. School starts in three weeks. I'm hoping that the start of a new school year can also be the start of a new, better, part of my life. This is the part of my life that I should learn to love myself, and not get so jealous of people who have people. I can be extraordinary all by myself, because that's the way God made me. With Him as my guide, friend and confidant, I can become what He needs me to be, and anything I want to be.

So, here's to life: to wanting it, to dreaming it, and to living it!

I have confidence in...something, there must be something...

This week begins my Spring Break - yay! I don't have to go to school at all this week, so I've got a little time to catch up on things. This week I am trying to memorize my students' opera, all the songs for Charlotte's Web, and a monologue for a Shakespeare thing I want to audition for. Because I'm keeping myself so busy, I'm not going to add a huge goal this week. However, because I want to continue to improve myself, I am going to add a little one: drinking enough water every day. I read somewhere that you should drink half your body weight in ounces of water. For example, if you weigh 100 pounds then you should drink 50 ounces of water a day. Well, I weigh a lot more than 100 pounds, so I will have to drink a lot of water, but I think that this will help with my health. It will make me less hungry, it will keep my kidneys functioning properly, and it will help my complexion - or so I've heard.

I mentioned a Shakespeare thing, I am going to step out of my comfort zone and audition for "A Night of Shakespeare," a little program that one of my friends is throwing together. I love acting and being on the stage, but I don't have the confidence it takes to get cast in the roles I want. I really want to do it, though, so I need to start auditioning for more things. There are only two things that are making me hesitate. One, my schedule - I will be right in the middle of Charlotte's Web. We will be in production by the time rehearsals start, though, and I don't have to go to all the shows, so it's really just looking for an excuse to use CW to get out of auditioning. The other thing that's making me reticent is a guy. I really like him (not romantically, he's just my friend), and I don't want to say or do anything stupid in front of him; I don't want to give him any more reasons to make fun of me.

I need to find a way to gain confidence in my talents and abilities and not let what other people think of me slow me down or stop me from getting what I want. I have been so afraid of what others think for so long, though, that I just don't know how to get around that. I was told growing up conflicting theories on acceptance. My mother told me that I was special, and, beautiful and loved no matter what. My father, on the other hand, told me that I was stupid, and ugly, and nobody would ever want me or love me if I didn't shape up and change things to please others. Why is it that in my heart I know that my mother is the one who is right on this, but my mind only believes the things my father said? Why can't I let go of the hurtful things in my past and move on to a beautiful future? I know that I'm talented and people want me, I just don't believe it sometimes, it's the believing that I need to work on!

So, confidence. Confidence in myself to accomplish and attain. Confidence in my abilities to get my tasks done. And, most importantly, confidence in my Savior to give me the strength to find confidence in myself and abilities, and comfort when confidence cannot be found.

Ah, Music!

I went to a fireside (a devotional/speaker) tonight given by David Glen Hatch. He is a concert pianist, one of the finest in the world. I was very excited to get to hear him play live (I have several of his albums). Dr. Hatch spoke about the worth of souls, and looking at life through different glasses. He reminded us that when we have God in our lives, then we are never alone. It was very uplifting and inspiring. And, of course, he played the piano. Aside from hymns (we were in a church, after all), he played two of my favorite pieces, by two of my favorite composers: "Claire de Lune" by Debussy, and "Prelude in C#" by Rachmaninoff. The reason he picked these two pieces is, he told us, that they were both written during times of great difficulty and sadness for the composers. It was interesting to me how the pieces differ so much in the way they express the grief and loneliness of the composers' lives. Debussy chose to display his emotions in a very calming and uplifting manner, creating a peace for himself when he could find no other. Rachmaninoff, on the other hand, gave a voice to his frustrations and any listener can hear the chaos in this composition. Both pieces, however, are ones that I've turned to in times of personal turmoil to find peace, release, and direction. I am so grateful to God for giving me music in my life; it is a great boon in times of sorrow, frustration, stress, pain, and grief. It is also wonderful to be able to express my joys and excitements in music.

Tonight I was reminded that I, too, was given some talent in music, and I, too, can bring this gift to others, to help them feel closer to our Creator and to learn/know/remember their worth. I was also reminded that I haven't done all I should to be improving this talent. The goal, then, is to practice the piano more often. I just have to remember what I felt tonight about my failing talent, and the desire to improve upon it, because it was very motivating.

I pray that by taking these steps to improve myself, the Lord will bless my efforts and increase my capacity to improve so that I may bless the lives of others.

April Snow Showers

Today is April 3. There are about 6 inches of snow on my driveway right now that all came down in the last 20 hours. I do not like snow. I usually hunker down for the winter and go out as little as possible; kind of like a bear. It makes me not want to do anything at all. But then, I was looking out my window at the trees in my backyard and thinking how pretty it was. I think that it's God's way of letting me know that even the things I don't like in my life can be good. And, randomly enough, it was a reminder to me of the good things in my life that I need to be doing but that I don't like. Exercise, f'rinstance, is something that I should be doing on a regular basis, but I have a really hard time doing it because I don't like it. It's good for me, though, and it would help me with a lot of my problems (weight, depression, high blood-pressure...) so it's something that I need to do. In that regard, exercise is like snow: I don't like it, but it's beautiful in the end.

Having had that little eureka moment made me ponder some of the other things in my life that I'm not doing, but should. I've decided to set better goals, starting today, to manage my time and money so that I can get what I want. I'm always telling my students "decide what you want and then make the choices that will get you what you want." It only makes sense that I should follow my own advice. So, here is what I want: I want to lose enough weight that I'm happy and healthy, I want to take voice and piano lessons so that I can be confident in my talents, I want to audition for more shows with enough confidence that I get cast, and I want to go on more dates. Now, I just have to sit down and decide how to get what I want...

So, the challenge begins! I will begin adding proverbial snowflakes to my backyard of life to achieve what I want.

Friends or not friends, hmm...

So, at the end of every major event in my life - school year, tour, show, play, etc - I have people that I've come to know and love sign my "Bye-bye book." It's a tradition that I picked up in Taiwan from the LDS missionaries and members of the little branch there, it's kind of like a year book for life. As last night was the closing night of "An Ideal Husband," for which I was stage manager, I had the cast and crew sign the book. Because I don't have sections of the book cordoned off for signing, it's a little adventure every time I read through looking for new signatures, it pulls all my memories together and puts them in a sort of feel good stew. I admit that one of the reasons I started the book was so that I could remember places and people, but another reason is because people always say nice things about me and I want to remember those things even more than I want to remember the people and places. Is that selfish? Maybe. Anyhow, as I was reading through the book this afternoon to see what my new "friends" had written it struck me as odd how many "friends" I have. Everyone who signed the book was very complimentary. They all said things like "you're wonderful," or "how talented you are," "keep in touch," "I'll miss you," and so on. There are even compliments about my voice (singing and speaking, thank-you very much) and a few people even told me I was pretty (which I still don't believe).

Now, the reason that I find this odd is not because I don't think that these people are sincere, I really don't think they'd lie to me, nor is it because I have low self-esteem, which I do, but because I find myself friendless more often than not. It is strange to me that all these people in my life have said what a wonderful person I am, but they never seem to want to spend time with me, or even call (or text, or facebook) to see how I'm doing or what I'm up to. I really try to keep up with what is going on in my friends' lives, and be an active part of their cheerleading team, but I don't have anyone, really, reciprocating the caring. It's really hard sometimes when I have a bad day, or even a good day, and I don't have anyone that I can confide in. I seem to be the person at the party that, when I'm there people are glad to see me, but if I'm not there nobody misses me. It's very sad, lonely, and frustrating.

So, my question to the universe, not that anyone will ever read this (sometimes just asking the question is therapeutic), is: How do I make friends that are really my friends? I seem to have a plethora of friends, just not anyone, nor any one, that is really my "friend" who will care when I am sad, or lonely, or hurting. How can I have that?

I think that part of the reason I'm wondering this now is because I'm hurting now, and I have nobody to confide in. I'm having nightmares, horrors from my past really, that have been stirred up by a horrible happening with one of my students, and I don't feel that I have any friend with whom to share my burden. When I think of all the "friends" that I have, I don't want to share with them because I am afraid that I will alienate them, or I feel that I don't know them well enough, or they have enough problems in their lives without adding mine. Who can I trust? Where and, more importantly, how can I find a friend?

The Theater, The Theater

I love, absolutely love, live theater. I enjoy going to see plays an musicals, but even more I love being involved behind the scenes. Last Summer, I was looking for some theater thing to be involved in, and I found a notice for a play. I e-mailed the director and ended up on the productions staff. I met some fun people, and some not so fun people, and I really loved being involved again. Then, in October, I auditioned for a show with a different theater company. I ended up being cast as an "Usherette" for "1940's Radio Hour". It was kind of a made up role because the director wanted to have a bigger ensemble than the script called for. But the other Usherettes and I rose to the challenge and created a really fun part, including a pre-show of Acapella Christmas carols. During the Christmas season I went back to the theater where I had been on the production staff to see some of my friends in their Christmas show. I ran into the director, and he asked me to be involved with the next show. I agreed, and joined the production staff again. The producer for that show is directing the next show, and she recruited me to be the musical director for that. So, for the last few months, the theater has become my life.

As much as I love it, I'm finding that I don't have time for much else, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Is it wrong to give up dreams or goals because I've found something else that I love? Is it okay to not have a social life or friends outside the theater when I love the people that I work with there? Is it really acceptable to allow this facet of my life to inhibit my being able to do anything else? I admit that I first got into theater for the joy of performing (after my concert pianist dreams were shattered along with my wrist), and I stayed with it because of the excuses it afforded me to not be at home. But, now I feel that I've been sucked into this magnificent vortex from which there is no escape. At this moment, I don't want to escape, I love my life the way it is. However, I can foresee, in the not too distant future, how this could very well impede my progress in life. I don't have time to meet people, go on dates (or even just out with friends), spend time with my family, exercise, eat properly, sleep, etc.

For now I say "The show must go on!" And I'm dedicated to serving the in the theater because, as crazy as it may sound, it relieves my stress. Theater gives me a chance to get out of my own personal hell and live in another world, many other worlds. Theater is bringing back to me the joy of performing that my wrist injuries took away from me, and I am not going to give that up easily.