We've Been Given a Gift
I COULDN’T HELP BUT LAUGH TODAY WHEN I SAW THIS MEME THAT SAID, “I MISS THE JOE EXOTIC/STIMULUS CHECK DAYS OF QUARANTINE”…IT SEEMS THAT EVEN JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO LIFE WAS EASIER OR A SIMPLER TIME. AHH YES, THE GOOD OL’ EARLY DAYS OF QUARANTINE. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT WE’D MISS THE EARLIER DAYS OF WHEN THE PANDEMIC FIRST HIT? I CERTAINLY DIDN’T & THAT’S WHEN IT HIT ME, AS DARK AS IT APPEARS ON THE SURFACE, THIS IS A GIFT WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN, WE JUST HAVE TO DIG A LITTLE DEEPER TO FIND IT.
I decided I would take a closer look as I re-examined my life and I thought to myself I’m still alive, that’s worth celebrating. It would be easy for me to want give up. I certainly can, my work situation is up in the air, meaning one of my gigs because you know living in New York means you have five to ten jobs. However, when those fall through as well and you’re down to the one you start to wonder a few things: did I miss my lot in life? Am I living in my true purpose? Should I just pack it all up and move back home never to try again? I guess I’m still recovering from COVID as I await to become even more asymptomatic to avoid a false positive. Albeit now I will have the anti-bodies, “Certainly, no one would judge you if you decide to move” I whisper to myself. You can certainly save money. But then again I ask myself, “Would I be completely happy?” As much as I love Texas because it will always be the place that raised me in so many ways and I am fortunate to call a few cities “home” and have “loved ones” in various areas of Texas, I feel like an outsider now when I go home. Sure I would adjust back but the truth is I can’t be me at home. Uncensored, or not having to worry about whether or not I will offend someone because they can’t handle my truth. I’m not conservative, I never have been and I never will be. I think that we learn best from each other, I believe everyone else’s life matters just as much as mine if not more. I believe in loving others just as Christ love me, no matter the shape, color, size, gender, or sexual orientation. I will never understand what those labels have to do with defining who someone is. I have never felt more of myself than I do here in the city. But then again I think…
Is the sacrifice of pursing a dream really worth it all? Is there ever a right time to be an actor or to pursue things that I really want? When it occurred to me that I needed to stop questioning things. Especially when so much of life right now is beyond my control. How many can say they’ve had the experience and thrill of living in one of the greatest, if not the greatest city in the world? We were even the epicenter of it all at one point and now it’s safer here and a few other states than anywhere else in terms of health. I have been fixated on Newton’s third law of motion and if in fact this theory holds true “For every action there is an equal, if not more opposing action”; then that must mean something GREAT is on the horizon. We are being handed a gift. If we’re not careful, we’ll miss it or perhaps we won’t find it. How can we get to it or make it to the other side of this if we keep dwelling on what’s wrong? I get it, and it’s A LOT to take but if we love ourselves enough that means establishing healthy habits. I personally have to force myself off of social media. As much as I feel like a big girl/New Yorker reading the Times (because it just feels like a grown up/New York thing to do) I will delete all my incoming emails about the news. I need to turn off my notifications from CNN and USA Today too because how will I ever stay strong during the storm? We must continue to press forward. I’m also not saying it’s a race like the hare, instead even if we move at a turtle pace, progress is still progress and eventually we will see the other side of this. The more important question we should be asking is how can we make the best of this time we have been given?
What quarantine has taught me is, how precious life actually is. Not that I’m ever really about material possessions which yes I do like to treat myself every now and again BUT I also recognize it’s so much more than that. I value quality over quantity any of day of the week. On the acting side of things, I don’t know if I would normally be able to continue my training as I’m financially able to do so which is now at slower pace than before and it’s OK but I have grown so much during this “down time”. Most of all I have learn that everyday is a celebration of life, and because I had COVID I’m lucky that I still AM alive. I thank God every day in general that I’m alive but now that gratefulness has become even more meaningful because not everyone was as lucky/blessed as I was. Side note for those that are mourning, I see you, I’m with you and it breaks my heart that you’re at the beginning stages of what has taken what seems like my whole life to recover from. I’m sorry for your loss/losses and I wish you nothing but grace, peace and love during this difficult time in your lives. Grief will come in waves as it always does which makes it somewhat tolerable. Or it can come in monsoons or feel like your world is crashing in. Lean into it, allow yourselves to mourn however that may look to you and never let anyone tell you how to grieve or that it’s weak to do so. Please, please do not judge yourselves either, there’s no one “right” way to mourn and being against yourself won’t help you heal. Conversely, get it out, channel your grief as you see fit because if you do anything like I did which is swallow it whole, like an animal in a cage it will flare up at the most inopportune moments or worse it will consume you. Yes, I would love nothing more to have my father with me, but I also know he’s still with me. I’m also not certain I would be as compassionate or aware of how short life actually is if he hadn’t made his trip to heaven early on in my life. I have a profound appreciation for life and everything in it and desire to serve others because I know how hard it is. Would that have come without losing him? I don’t know. I can say that I got to the point where now it gives me so much fuel to make the most out of this life & to love hard. I digress…but I hope someday you’ll find your way towards dancing again or laughing again and more importantly learning how to live again. You can’t see your loved one in person but they are always with you in your heart. The best way to honor their legacy is to remember or fill those dark days with happy memories. Losing one of Broadway’s biggest stars recently who was a big inspiration for me moving to the city has reminded me once again of how short life actually is.
More importantly quarantine and recovering from COVID has taught me to never save anything for a “special” occasion, I now realize that being alive is the special occasion and life no matter how dark it may appear in the natural if you’re a faith based person or even if you believe in nothing but believe in the universe then you know there are supernatural forces working FOR us to turn it all around so its only a matter of time before this is all over. Yes, it may get worse before it gets better, that’s just the nature of it. However, what if 2020 is the year where it all comes together? What if 2020 is the year that really breaks down or strips away the superfluous that you really didn’t need? What if 2020 is the year that you really figured out what you want out of life and friends it’s never to late to do that! How do I know? Robert Frost said it best, “to sum up the meaning of life is, it goes on”. It’s that simple, who knew? I still struggle to recognize and accept that but how great is it that our best days are still out in front of us. How boring would life have been if this is where we stayed? What would we do if the learning and life lessons were over? I know sometimes its hard to see or even understand why things happen but I can attest that more often than not they happen for us. It’s all part of God’s/the universe’s plan to get us where we’re going. I know life has taken a SHARP left turn or veered off course but there’s a metaphorical “GPS” that will re-direct us soon enough. Plus, in some ways this may be putting us ahead of the curve in certain areas of our lives. Or maybe just maybe it’s getting us to where and who we were meant to be all along. Besides nothing is ever wasted. Mistakes, detours or confusion is never waste, it’s called experience. We are learning, growing and doing our very best right now, there is so much power in that more than we realize. I said it earlier but merits repeating, we are being given a gift. Let’s not focus on the wrapping or packing of how it comes but rather value the richness of the experience that is being developed right now.
I remember when I graduated with my Ph.D. I was so scared of the future because I didn’t know what it looked like or what it meant. My whole life had been wrapped up in my studies that I didn’t even know who I was outside of that environment. I still had doubts and thoughts that filled me with the popular, “am I getting it right?” And friends, life got easier for me when I accepted the fact that I might not ever get it right and I could finally breathe. I also remember feeling the journey was over, like all of the learning I could possibly do in a lifetime (mind you I was 31 when I graduated at the time) I thought was over. How limited in my thinking was I? LOL. It’s impossible to learn everything I need to know about life in 5 years. Thank God we adapt and we evolve and there’s still much for me to learn and experiences that will shape and mold me. Life and acting is just not that simple and we as humans are just not that “easy”. We’re complicated, we’re broken, we’re beat up and as the great Billy Porter just said today on Instagram, “sometimes my trauma shows” and you know what? It’s beautiful. Completely and utterly perfect in its own unique way actually. When we recognize our truth including opportunities for development or some say our “short comings” we give ourselves permission to be human. And again, exactly what is the purpose of having it all “figured out” anyway? If COVID or quarantine has taught us ANYTHING, it’s that life is so unpredictable and the best well laid plans don’t stand the test of time. The only thing we can do is relax, breathe, dig deep and rebound the best way we know how. Of course that looks different for everyone and that is OK too. You’re also not designed to be anyone else or run any other race but your own.
How did I learn this you might ask? Honestly, the arts. The arts saved my life when I was a teenager struggling to mourn my father because I didn’t know-how. I’m also not certain that any of us know how to grieve, we can only offer up advice, and make do with it the best we can. When we know better we do better but we cannot judge ourselves because we have gotten to where we thought we would be by a certain time. Speaking of which, what is the purpose of these life deadlines, and who says you have to do something by this date, time, or year? Yes goals are important and yes they keep us accountable but we really ought to learn how to be flexible about how we get there. Clearly 2020 has been all about re-adjusting things, or at least it has up until this very moment, and again it’s OK. I still catch myself every now and again where my anxiety tries to creep in and say, “But Sarah what about the future?”. I find myself saying, “Stop. The future remains unknown, I hope for the best but I can only make the best of today. Remember to trust God/the universe that everything will unfold the way that it’s supposed to.”
I think about when I came back to acting and how I always thought I had to get the right “answer” or have the right objective and I used to beat myself up or remain in my head about how much I blew it. But you know something? I failed at it every single day when I began again. I perhaps still fail now but I’m getting better about understanding the story, know how to relate my experiences to a particular scene or as they say in the business how to “personalize” something. I am learning how to truly develop a backstory if it isn’t automatically given and mostly I am learning to trust myself/my instrument and my instincts. More than anything I am learning to be human again in a way that I’m not sure I would if I was always constantly going or if it wasn’t for quarantine forcing me to slow down, literally. Acting colors my world and I wouldn’t have it any other way when the majority of it is always spent in a “grey area”
I’m sure it would be great for some if we always had the right answers or always knew the outcome but again how boring would that be if we stayed the same. Or if we always played it safe? How much injustice would we be committing against ourselves if we didn’t allow ourselves to grow and extend grace during the process? Ironically, it seems we suffer from “destination disease” or that feeling of “wanting to just get there”, or “I need answers now” that so often we miss the beauty of the in-between or middle. We also don’t recognize that there is something to be learned in the middle or in today’s great pause. We are being given a gift. I can do without the growing number of cases but I am loving all the extra free time & finding ways to use it constructively.
There will come a day when we won’t be indoors for the majority of the day. There will come a day that I hope and pray to God our cases will slow down, there will be a day when the death toll will stop, and again it may get worse before it gets better but we are in the thick of it and there’s no denying that. Yet if there’s one thing I do know is that it won’t always be like this. I don’t know if I will miss quarantine when it’s over but I do know that I’ll be so grateful and better because of it. Life is incredibly challenging these days and we’re not helping ourselves or our current situations by being counterproductive with negativity or self-judgment. I’m also not saying that you can’t feel your feelings, you absolutely can and you should but extend grace to yourself. That being said, while we’re practicing grace towards ourselves, how can we extend grace to others? Can we practice love, patience, and gentleness by wearing a mask? Lives including yours are at stake here so let’s just do a simple task and wear a mask (no rhyme intended).
I don’t know that I want to go back to the “old” and it’s already gone so even as life resumes back to our previous interpretation of “normal” there is no such thing as we have already adapted to life as it is now that we will then evolve to another form of “normal” conducive to life at that moment in the future. I’m learning what wasn’t working is being removed and that the more cracked something is, the more light can come bursting through. And as MLK once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” I know it’s hard be we owe to ourselves and more importantly this world to try. Besides this world is counting on the special light that only YOU can bring. So shine on!
