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September 08, 2006
The Center of Me
I had my training and certification for Reiki Okuden Level two weeks ago. Because I didn't have enough to do that week, what with starting classes and creating lesson plans for the two classes I subbed for and running a week's worth of rehearsals, I took a Saturday and received attunements and training for Level 2.
While I was at the training, I was talking about how my life is either drought or deluge, there seems to be no middle ground, and how balance (which is one of the things we covered in the training) is a foreign concept to me. I'm not sure why, but except when I'm so busy I don't have time to breathe, I spend my life convinced that I'm not doing enough. Other people do these 700 things with their lives. Why am I only acting and gardening and working as the assistant to a CEO? Why am I only mentoring a kid who lives 30 minutes away and teaching three classes? (Or, like right now, why am I only teaching 4 classes, training the incoming TA's, doing vocal coaching for a show, getting ready to start rehearsals for another, rehearsing for a staged reading of a new play by Dave, taking weekly nature photographs, maintaining a steady online presence on my blog and trying to keep the house from collapsing into chaos because our cleaning lady quit to get a better job and we can't find another one? I'm not doing enough with my life, am I?)
I think I may have found balance for a brief period in my twenties, when I thought I had all the time in the world to get things done. And then again in my mid-30's, when I was sure the stars were aligning and I was going to be able to do the kind of acting I wanted to do. But for me, balance takes a lot of work. I have to focus on carving out time for myself, and it's a tricky tightrope to walk. Because I can't say no to too many things or I end up back in the barren wasteland of nothing to do.
And it seems that all or nothing is hardwired into my system. Because as I was explaining this to my fellow practitioners, a story from my own babyhood popped into my head.
According to my parents, taking me out for ice cream was not nearly the treat they thought it should be. We would get all settled in at the ice cream store and they would begin giving me ice cream. I would start to cry because they weren't feeding it to me fast enough. So they would feed it to me faster. And then I would get an ice cream headache (which in my case is not only excruciating pain in a ring around my skull, but also an intense ache between my shoulderblades) and I would cry harder. So they would slow down with the feeding the baby ice cream thing and I would cry because I wanted more and they weren't feeding it to me fast enough. And then they would speed up the spoonfuls coming my way and the ice cream headache would come back. Apparently it was a nasty cycle of screaming Sally.
As I said, feast or famine seems to be a part of me down to my very bones. And just so you know, I tend to deal much better with feast. I'm really organized and a good time juggler. As long as I can get enough sleep, I do pretty well with the working like a fiend thing. But always, always there's this sense of not doing enough. Of not being the person/actor/artist I'm supposed to be.
When I was in Boise this weekend, I read some articles about local actors that my mom had saved for me. And I was consumed with a bitter, raging jealousy. Because I've worked with those people. Part of me knows that I'm more than capable of doing the same level of work. Yet here they are, union members, working steadily in two cities, and I'm stuck here in Moscow, wondering if I'm deluding myself because the last five years have been a steady stream of being told I'm not good enough. Even though I know that the people who tell me that are wrapped up in their own messes and aren't the most objective of judges, it's still been the overriding theme of my late 30's. And that tends to wear on a girl.
I spent a lot of time praying to get over it. As in, "Please, God, I don't want to feel like this. Please don't let me turn into this bitter, nasty person I feel like I'm becoming." I don't know if it worked, because I still feel the hurt, still feel like a failure, still feel the doubts of my own worth. The bile-flavored hatred seems to be gone, however. So that's good.
I expect that's why I say yes to so much. Because I feel like if I do more, I'll somehow make up for whatever my shortcomings are. I wonder if I'll ever just be able to relax and be happy being who I am. If I'll ever be able to get over this sense that I'm behind schedule, that I haven't achieved everything I'm supposed to have attained by now.
I suspect that will be the project of a lifetime.
Posted by sally at September 8, 2006 10:41 AM
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