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| Photo taken from a session at Weave. Credit: B N Karim |
Over the past six months I have had both the best times while living through the worst time of my life.
How contradictory is that? How can that even happen?
I can't even explain it myself. Right at this very moment my body and my mind are trying to reconcile those two truths - being in the worst time of my life while having the best time of my life.
My health has been terrible. I got the 'flu in about.....August I think. I'm not talking about a cold. I'm talking the 'flu, where even my skin was aching and I got this racking cough that sometimes threatened to crack ribs. Some would say I was trying to cough up a lung.
Despite a recent chest x-ray that gave me the all-clear I am still coughing.....and it's the middle of November. I've only got myself to blame. I just kept on going....because there were too many things to do. I didn't do what my body needed me to do. I didn't rest. I didn't rest because there were opportunities that presented themselves where I got to finally do what I've dreamed of doing for as long as I can remember.....and I didn't want those opportunities to pass me by. I am, after all.......almost 50.........(shhhh.........I didn't just say that!)
But that's not the worst thing. And that's not the reason I lived both the worst and best times of my life.
On October 14 I got a phone call that a mother never wants to get. One of my children was involved in a serious road accident.
I don't want to go into the details, because that's their story.......but after an extended stay in hospital where bones were put back together and other issues were resolved, they are home and physically doing well.
They dodged yet another bullet. We all did. Sometimes the impact of that still catches me unaware. People say to focus on the fact that the worst didn't happen and they are well and are on the way to recovery...and for the most part I can do that.....
...but there are times where my mind heads back to that night and the full realisation of things hit and I realise what a bullet we did actually dodge. I haven't yet processed everything officially with the people I need to see. Part of me is scared to. Everything just sits there under the surface and I suppose it's the reason for my current state of.....drift and disconnection.
As all this was happening I was involved in a show with Weave Movement Theatre. We were in final rehearsals for our two week season that had been scheduled for months.
Some may call me crazy, some may even think that it was as though I didn't care, or that I wanted to escape.....but I didn't pull out of the production. I kept going.
For the first time ever....I also took care of me....in some strange way.
It was the best thing I could've done...even though I was so very exhausted. Over a month I possibly slept no more than three hours a night. I ate breakfast and then ate sporadically. Over the course of two days following the accident I lost two kilos. I'd get up and go to the hospital. I'd spend time at the hospital and then go to rehearsal. When the season started I'd alternate between the hospital and the theatre, going home to shower, eat a little something, catch a few hours sleep and then head out again.
It sounds torrid......but during the worst time of my life I was having the best time of my life.
How does that even happen?
I think being in the show actually saved my life.....or at least my sanity. I felt as though I was living two lives. There was life at the hospital, where I'd watch numbers and feel scared, feel white hot rage at the circumstances that had my beloved in there and all I wanted was for her to come home and be ok. I was filled with anxiety.
Then I would get to the theatre.....and go on stage under those bright lights and the smoke machine and the plastic bags and the costumes and the pumping music and I'd be fully THERE. Nothing else existed. Everything melted away and I felt centred and strong and grounded AND I KNEW EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO BE OK. For those 75 minutes I knew it was all going to be ok. My daughter was in surgery while I was performing in our Preview show and for those 75 minutes I felt safe...and I knew she was safe....but the minute I stepped off the stage and the preview show was over I was in Mum mode. I got out of my costume and high tailed it to the hospital and spent the next few hours in the waiting room.....pacing....pacing....pacing. She didn't get out of surgery until well after midnight.
The performance kept me sane and focused.
I was also having the best time of my life because for a couple of months - with rehearsals and then the season - I was part of something. I felt a sense of connection and community. I think that's what I love so much about being a creative; that you band together with a whole lot of other creative people to make something bigger than all of you - something that you all bring together and share with MORE people. In dance and movement there's also an element of trust that is shared with each other. I have to trust *this* person enough to know that when they lift me and then whip me around their shoulders I am going to be safe....and that THEY are going to be safe doing so.
Being a part of the cast meant that for those few awful weeks I felt safe and nurtured. There were arms to hold me when the terror threatened to take me away, there were laughs to be had, people to get to know and connect with and relate to. They all became my safe place; my family. We had rituals that fed into my need for life to be safe and predictable - presetting the props and costumes, warm up, cast pre-show pep-talks and yoga with dirty feet and plastic bags.
I miss all that.
I dreaded it ending. I still hate that it ended. I just wanted to keep on going and take it on the road - despite the fact that one of my fellow cast members said that it would be like "herding cats"!
I hate that I connect so much, because the emptiness after it ends is almost too much to bear. I've always been that way. With SSPA I would get "Post camp/convention blues" for MONTHS. I haven't changed much.
Despite the fact that I have other exciting projects in the wings, leads to follow, events I've said yes to and things that may yield hope and promise of a life direction I've yearned for since I was a little girl....I feel empty.
I go home to an empty house....well, apart from the dog.
I openly admit that right now I hate this single life. I don't really know how to do it. I'm practicing...and there have been people about lately who have been kind and patient and indulging as I have tried out my single legs. Does that even make sense? I surprise myself by saying yes to invitations to events where I know nobody except the person who invited me. I surprise myself even more by having 30 minute interesting conversations with random people at a bar. I realise that I have held myself back over all these years....worried about things I didn't need to.
Today I am finding it hard to have hope. I keep asking myself, "Is this all there is for me now? Having all these amazing things happen and yet still going home at the end to my dog?" I don't want it to be this way anymore. If going through the best time of the worst time of my life taught me anything it was that I am ready to move forward.
I just don't quite know how to do that.
