4.5 years??? What the...

​​I swear it was just a few weeks ago that I made my last entry. I’ve been meaning to write so many times and well… I just didn’t seem to have it in me. A lot’s happened in 4 ½ years and I guess I’ve felt sort of spent. To sum, I ended up becoming a full-time caregiver in my small hometown in Michigan where jobs/income for me were nowhere to be found. And yes, I need to hear that I’m overqualified just one more time!!! (ugh…hahaha) But all the while I had this feeling… no, this knowing that I was right where I was supposed to be, and when it was time for me to move on, the situation would present itself.
 
As was the case at the beginning of the year when I got a call from Cleveland Play House. So, I moved to Ohio at the end of January to be a teaching artist in an elementary school in Cleveland. Found an apartment and signed a lease March 1st. And then… two weeks later the world basically shut down due to all things COVID. While the production staff were furloughed almost immediately as the theatres were closed, the education staff were able to switch to online programming to finish out the school year. But I saw the writing on the wall, so to speak, and figured that this COVID thing was going to permanently change how education would be handled here and throughout the country. Turns out I was right. Yep… CPH did not renew my teaching artist position for the new school year. So… now what, right?
 
Interestingly, I wasn’t all that upset about it. Again, something in me knows that things are moving in a positive way for me and that CPH was just a means for me to get here for now… near a river that leads to a beautiful ocean-like lake… a place where I’m feeling unexpectedly rejuvenated despite the daily emotional roller coaster from social isolation and income ambiguity, not to mention being in a new place not really knowing anyone… again.
 
You know, I really resonate with the idea of a river… there will always be rocks and blocks on life’s journey, yet the river finds a way around them and keeps flowing. It’s bringing me a sense of peace… going with the flow… opening up to a new way to be and do in the world… into the unknown once more…
 
At first I was thinking that I’m starting over from scratch, but that’s not really true. I’m not starting over from behind the line, and I’m not trying to go back to anywhere. Starting on a new level is more like it. It’s evolution time. I feel like these last 4 ½ years, in particular, have been preparing me for it… even if I felt I couldn’t write about it until now. And you know, I think that’s ok. I don’t think we need to be “producing” all the time. I think we need times to unplug to let things breathe, heal, and come together in a way that exceeds the limits of our production line imagination… if we want things to really change and give ourselves the ability to move beyond the status quo to the next higher level. So, here we go…

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