Two years on...

At 7:05 EDT exactly two years ago today, I began a completely new phase in my life. After having my last sugared coffee and black-bottom cupcake at Starbucks and some of my last regular soda and whatever else I used to eat before, I started down a path that I've been traveling now for two years.

I don't have a whole lot to congratulate myself for. Not that I haven't rallied to the cause - to the contrary. I simply managed to do what I should have been doing all along, and what everyone should do and is well within everyone's ability to do, which is simply take a moment and think about what they're eating or doing, and start taking the long view.

I'm now aware - painfully aware, perhaps at times even too aware - that what I do, the personal choices I make, are going to have an impact now and twenty or thirty years from now. I have lived with a very intimate knowledge, an intense realization that I am temporary, at least from this physical world's perspective (I'm still working on the rest of it). And I have good days and bad coming to an acceptance of that cold, hard fact.

I feel that in the past two years, I have a much clearer perspective on certain things, and a much lower tolerance for others. I no longer suffer fools very well (a group that has an ever-growing population in my eyes), but I am much more careful to automatically assume the worst in people. Well, at least I try much harder not to make that assumption.

Two years ago I was granted a different perspective. Not an entirely new one, but certainly one I did not have on June 27, 2005. Along with that, I acquired many new demons. I fight them on an almost daily basis these days. I feel the need to constantly and almost without abandon throw myself into whatever it is I'm doing. I feel like I've lost my ability to appreciate the moment, the Now, and perhaps am overcompensating. It's what I do in lieu of letting my mind wander to the scarier realms where I profoundly feel just how small and temporary I am.

Materially, my life is much better than it has been in a long time. Jenn and I are in as good a place as we have been since we've been dating. That's not to say we're in a great place in the grand scheme of things, but at least they're better. Two years ago today, I was a failed freelance lighting designer. Now I run the box office for one of the most energetic theater companies in the country. I have a position in my chosen profession, the one I spent all of my time in higher ed preparing for, earning recognition and respect for my ability within an industry I love. The last two years have been about rebuilding, and rebuilding correctly.

There's really no point to this except to check in, thank the scant few who check in here, and maybe relay some sense of where my scattered thoughts are at right now, in the midst of preparing for a new season, selling out the final show of the current season, and just living life in the midst of another summer in Washington (now my 8th).

Oh, and to let y'all know that I'm seeing the Transformers movie tonight. Yep, 5 days before everyone else gets a crack at it.

Dare You to Move

I don't know if this is an interesting thing to write about, or even if it's worth writing about, but it's been something I've been thinking about this weekend, and it's a bit on the self-congratulatory side, and I'm really not looking for any pats on the back. I've just been thinking about this particular thing a bit over the past few days, and I figured I ought to a) get it down in writing before I forgot about it, and b) throw you loyal readers a bone with a little meat on it.

I went to work.

It's not much, and it's utterly unremarkable in the Grand Scheme of things, or even the Small-To-Medium schemes of the block of this street.

But this week just passed was a really important one for me. For the first time since I had the stroke, I had as intense a work week as I had at any given point in the first four years of my life here in DC. About 55 hours, all told, between two wildly different jobs, managing very different things.

And I feel better right now, at the end of that week and just hours away from the start of another one, than I have in the past year. Part of it is spring's fault (favorite season and all), but this exhaustion I feel is absolutely genuine, and I relish every bit of it.

See, for the past ten months, I've been giving in to my hypochondriac side. The slightest eye twitch, the slightest head rush, the slightest anything, and I'd start worrying, "My God, is this another stroke?" I knew rationally that it wasn't. I distinctly remember what the stroke felt like, and nothing that I've experienced since last summer has felt even remotely like that. But when you're worried that you might be having a stroke (you being me, with my recent medical history), reason kind of flies out the window.

On a few choice occasions, especially since January, these little bouts of hypochondria have exploded into full-blown panic attacks. As in, have the digits 9-1-1 plugged into my phone and hovering my thumb menacingly over the Call button, waiting for just one little twinge. It was like High Noon at the O.K. Corral facing off against my brain.

But never another twinge. Never another trip to the ER. Never another stroke. So far [knocks on wooden desk].

But these twinges, real or not, have kept me from operating at 100%. As I've been slowly reintroducing myself to regular work, I've forced myself go slowly, because I thought I needed it. Six months ago, I didn't have a 30-hour week in me, let alone a 60-hour one.

This week, I had the chance to do one. So, no time being like the present indeed, I jumped in.

And so, here I am, at the other end of it, not only surviving but thriving.

I was made to live like this. I haven't had a week like this since Cherry Red closed, and I realize only now how much I miss it. (And don't get me wrong, Woolly isn't Cherry Red, but it's at least still theater, and I at least still like it.)

It's fucking awesome to be back. Thanks for letting me bend your ear eyeball.

Find a hero

Here's a name not many of you may be familiar with: Tedy Bruschi.

Bruschi's a veteran inside linebacker for the New England Patriots. You probably saw him if you saw the Super Bowl last year. He wasn't a superstar in the game, just a solid performer. Hell, most defensive backs would kill to get the kind of minimal coverage Bruschi has received through his career. Regardless, he got a lot of things in the past twelve months: A Super Bowl ring, a Pro Bowl appearance, and $4.2 million for his time and trouble.

Except for being a large, white, 32-year old male, Bruschi and I have nothing in common.

Er... had nothing in common.

In February, just weeks after winning the Super Bowl, Bruschi had a stroke.

This past Sunday, he played in his first game since the stroke. And his stats from the game were only slightly below the averages he'd put up last year. The Pats ended up losing that game, but what the hell... dude came back from a stroke, fer the love of Pete.

My enjoyment of football occurs in a very simple, base, pure part of my brain. My respect for Tedy comes from an equally simple, pure place. There's just not a whole lot to say about it... Dude came back from a stroke to play in the freakin' NFL. I mean, come on.

[Link to news story about Tedy's comeback here.]

[CORRECTION: Dann pointed out that I was factually wrong about the outcome of the Pat's game this past Sunday. They ended up winning. I haven't the slightest idea why I couldn't read a couple of numbers and infer the correct information. Looking at the wrong week, perhaps. I dunno. Anyway, consider this mistake owned-up-to.]