Onward and Upward

That is my official theme for this new year: Onward and Upward.

My god it felt like a long one this time, didn't it? It was a year of change, though, and change is good, generally.

The biggest change, for me, is that I finished grad school, thus ending three of the unhappier years of my life, or so I hope. There's a nagging question, though, that graduates feel tickling at the back of their brains, at least I do, and that question is: Am I really better off for having gone through that? And that, my friends, is a tough question to ask yourself. With all of your heart you don't want the answer to be "No". You don't want to believe that you could have put yourself through THREE YEARS of that shit, only to come out with less confidence in yourself than when you went in. Man, because if "No" is the answer, then you're opening the door to a whole flood of unsettling questions. Where might you be if you had gone another route? Gone to another school? Worked? Traveled? What if you had just kept on doing theatre, rather than studying it; would your career be in better shape, or worse?

Most of these questions are impossible to answer, but sometimes when you're lying awake, again, and you can't sleep, again, some of these questions may creep their way into your consciousness. I can offer no answers, only my empathy.

Pause for a moment. I'd like to raise a drink to Jesse. 's been a year now, Jesse, and I hope you're in a happier place.

It doesn't matter how old you get, when you ask a girl to dance and she says no, you still feel like you're that skinny, awkward kid at a middle school dance.

This was the year you decided to "quit dating for a while", and ended up more emotionally convoluted than if you hadn't. Good thing the irony isn't lost on you.

This Spring you were in the best shape of your life. By the time Dec. 31st rolled around, you were quite possibly in the worst shape of your life. It's amazing what a potent excuse an injured shoulder is, but that's all it is.

The chair you're sitting in is broken, and you almost just fell out of it. Again.

Well, let's get back to my theme here.

Onward and Upward.

Onward and Upward means not dwelling in the past. It doesn't mean putting make-up on your scars, but it means letting them fade in the sun.

It means you stop telling yourself the stories of why you can't do something, and you start living the story of how you can.

That's my new year's resolution.

I hope '07 brings each of you peace, love, and understanding, health, happiness, and a whole lot of fun.

Lots of love,

BR 1.1.07 2:18am