Theatre= Drugs??

I find myself missing production more and more these days. I think that this due to the fact I haven’t done a proper show in a year and a half. I think this was also prompted by a phone call I made this evening. I called a friend who does production, but whom I had met after I had stopped playing in that world. I asked my standard “Hey are you alive?” which in Chris translates into “Hey I miss you and know you’re probably obscenely busy, but I just wanted to say hi and see if you were okay.” He proceeded to tell me the insane hours (a normal person) he was working and that he was in tech. I told him cool and I’d call him later. What I really wanted to say was “Why the hell did you pick up the phone?” Hell when I was in tech my family knew I was unreachable as if I was in another century or on the Moon. I think my non-production friends thought I dropped dead. It is odd to have a friend who doesn’t know how well you understand the world they play in.

However, whenever I come to this point of desperately missing my old life I remember what it did to me. It left me broken, shattered, and barely able to cope in normal life. It was as if I left a cult or finally got off some drug. I look at all I sacrificed or shoved aside for it, stability, monetary gain, finical security, normalcy, friendships, and family. And then I remember all I gained from it, random odd skills, an ability to know that almost no problem is too big, how to say no, getting to live all over the place. It was a fun ride. I was able to inhabit a place where I didn’t need too many social graces, where my ability curse a blue streak could occasionally be career asset, and above all else place that was community bonded together by the mass insanity that we were all participating. There was something wonderful about doing the impossible in seven days. Something great about being able to point at something and say I did that today. When it all came together, it was the best high in the world, and when it didn’t it was the absolute pits.

I find myself not wanting to fling myself back in wholesale but to go and stick my toe in the waters. To go and play and fuck around a bit. But I know myself too well. I have a job that is realtivly boring in comparsion but pays the bills. The arts really don’t unless your playing in the big leagues. And I never possessed the innate talent that is necessary to play at that level. I always felt like I was faking it somehow. I was constantly waiting to be caught. To be called out and told I had to leave. That I did not belong in this amazing collective. And when the shit finally hit the fan, it was a relief, an absolution. That this wasn’t just my own self-doubt and lack of confidence. That was just mediocre at best. Now that there has been time and space I feel like a recovering junkie needing a hit. While the entire time I know if I go get a hit all I’m gonna want is another.

And the last thing I need in my life is to give myself another opportunity to go get my teeth kicked down my throat. I finally got my adult teeth on this set and I’d like to keep them for a while. And as I sit here on this whole, damnit I miss putting on show kick, I find myself wondering if going back to school and eventually getting my masters in a totally different field will fill this gaping hole at the center of me. Which then leads me to ask the question of why do I expect a vocation to do this? After all most people seem to look to another human being to fill this hole in them. I just plain don’t trust anyone else enough to put even the tiniest bit of my future happiness into their hands. What the hell does this say about my ability to be in anything other than fleeting relationship? How the hell did this go from me missing my old life to wondering if I can manage to have a trusting relationship when I’m a mistrusting bastard? Huh, the places my brain wanders if it is given half a chance to.