Bracing for the upheaval
I am getting on that jet plane four days from today, heading over to the UK to try my hand at my particular brand of showbiz on that fair isle, to place my heart finally, firmly in the keeping of the love of my life, who I stumbled across 2+ years ago when I didn’t even know I was looking for anyone. And my feeling about this right now can be summarized as follows:
Four days is simultaneously NEVER GOING TO BE OVER and JESUS CHRIST THAT’S NEXT WEEK.
This confusing feeling of stretch-of-time and imminent explosion of everything I know, it makes sense, considering how major changes have always happened in my life: either there are slow, unnoticed shifts or there’s a sudden eruption of consciousness-altering intensity. I highlight this with regards to my sexuality with my play slut (r)evolution. Hell, it’s right there in the punctuation of the title: is it evolution or revolution? The answer, of course, is yes.
This time around, at this particular point in my life, the same idea of gradual change versus sudden upheaval feels more… tectonic. I’m changing my location on the earth, the ground under my actual feet. People who study plate tectonics know how it goes. Sometimes pieces of the earth grind past each other. Sometimes they catch and stick, and the pressure builds and builds until suddenly one day they jerk past each other, destroying buildings and altering lives over head.
What’s true is this: a life doesn’t happen all at once, and a seemingly sudden breakthrough is rarely that sudden. I’ve been building my performing skill set, my packet of offerings, for… well, not for decades, but definitely for years. I’ve been grinding through lines, and rehearsing for hours, and debating fine points of punctuation and delivery with my directors for probably the equivalent of DAYS. That is just the grind of the work. I will never bust through into stardom on Oprah’s show. My accomplishments here are slow and uphill.
Ditto for my love life. I mean, not that it’s a grind, but where it is now is very much a function of all the little lists and humble presents and tense discussions and weekly skype-sex dates and pictures swapped. It is a relationship that has been sliding along nicely for a long time, but there was that sticking place, right? The same one that everyone in a long-distance relationship has to wrestle with at some point or another: when are we going to be able to stop this bullshit and move closer to each other, because we are agreed, yes? THIS LONG-DISTANCE STUFF IS BULLSHIT.
For the past year and a half, my own version of that sticking point—maybe it’s everyone’s, who am I kidding—has really been about just money and timing. Oh, yeah, and fear. Fear of not having my car, of not having any car, of losing some of the personal mobility that I value so much. Fear of not having enough money, for moving and staying and health care and everything. Fear of not being talented enough of a performer to drop the phone sex for good and be able to count on my wits and performance skills and goddamn teeth-gritting hustle. Fear of throwing in my lot with one lover, face to face, real time, because what if I had forgotten how to sail a relationship?
Thankfully, in the last few months those fears have started to resolve, or dissolve. I asked people to remind me—frequently—that I had made and survived big leaps before. I laid the groundwork, and started pounding the pavement for gigs way back in February and March. I talk with UK Muse multiple times a day, in silliness and in seriousness, and rejoice in knowing that it’s all there.
These have been the slow, gentle workings of my plans and dreams. The sudden shift, that comes next week. It’s still going to be an emotional earthquake of epic proportions, but I’m a decent psychological seismologist by now. I know it’s coming, and I’ve done everything I can to be ready for it.
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