To live a life.

"That's the most stupid expression in the world. 'I fell in love'  - as if you had no choice. There's a moment, there's always a moment; I can do this, I can give in to this, or I can resist it..." - Alice 'Closer'

I'm writing this on a Thursday night. As always, there is music in my ear.  I never write without the aid of music.  Tonight is Chopin.  That doesn't matter.  As always there in incense burning.  I find this calming.  It helps with the brain stuff.

Tuesday morning, I woke up with a clarity.  A strange little focus I haven't had in a while.  There were no bells.  No alarms.  There was no particular event.  There was nothing that should have instigated this clarity.  It was just there.  Like an old friend who calls when least expected.

In the time between my literal and metaphorical waking on Tuesday, I have been to work three times.  I have smoked 60 and 80 cigarettes.  I have been to rehearsal.  I have eaten.  I have showered.  I have written a few texts here and there.  Posted some insignigicant shit to my facebook. In other words...outwardly...I have not changed at all.

Inside, I am entirely new.  Or rather...a return to the old.  I am...renewed to what once was, and is again.  I feel better about that.

There is, it's hard to describe, a strange emptiness, but also...freedom.  Untethered to a certain fiction, that eventually I discover, is really more burden than is necessary.

And I am once again the me that I prefer.  

I am calculated.

I am calm.

I am the lone traveller of the path, I intentionally forge.

Without the weight of unrealistic fantasy, I find myself flying again.  Things have returned to the familiar color of my personal reality.

And I sleep again.

I did miss sleep.

And it is sleep that restores my absolute knowledge that in 2012, the life defining decision I made, was without question, the right one.  Sometimes I get distracted.  I guess that's okay...but distraction doesn't come without price.

That's okay.  There is no price I'm not willing to pay, if there is something of value in return.

And there was.

And there is.

But that's all tedious, and specific, and...really uninteresting.

So lets get to the crux of it.

I have been consistently acting since I was five years old.  For most of my young life, I thought that's what I was. What I was going to be. What I was going to do.  It was the only thing that I loved to do.  There were many other things that I loved...but...

I did a LOT of things.  Explored so many various interests.  There were so many things that I enjoyed doing...but only one thing I LOVED doing.

In my early years of college, I took a directing class.  This was something new...the first thing in over a decade that I also LOVED doing.  Acting. Directing.  Both within a particular medium, but requiring different skill sets.  I loved it no more...but especially no less than acting.  It was oh so fulfilling in entirely different ways.

Toward the later years of my college experience, I discovered playwriting.  And there it was again. A thing to do, that could also be loved.  Different....but the same.  Acting/Directing/Writing.  I loved it so much, I ended up the TA for the playwriting class for three semesters, before I left school.  Script analysis became another passion.  All of these things, within the theatre world, that fulfilled me like nothing else in my personal existence.

For a very long time, I called this a general love of theatre.  I didn't really get it.  I was still keeping these things separate...until...eventually...in an entirely different moment of clarity I realized that it was not that at all.  I didn't love theatre.  I didn't love acting or directing or writing.  I mean...I did...I do...still more than anything...but

Also not.  Yes...but the deeper truth is, it's not any one of those things,  I love storytelling. Theatre, and those various aspects of it, are simply the medium most accessible to me, to explore it.  And I do. And I will. I can't....not.

I am a storyteller.  This is what I do.  This is who I am.  I am a collector of stories. I have dedicated my entire life, to the process, science, art, philosophy, and craft, of telling stories.  This is where my passion lies, and I do.  I love it.  I love it in every aspect and regard.  Music. Novels, Paintings. Photos, Dance, Everything. And I realize that everything....EVERYTHING...is storytelling.

Everything is narrative.  The story changes, depending on the narrator, but we are all of us, the stories we tell.  The costumes we wear. The masks we craft.  We build lives, and careers, and homes, and even other humans, all within the narrative we present to the world, and the ones we keep to ourselves.

Our communities.  Our societies. Our rules. Our politics. Our gods. Our love. Our pain. Our sorrow. Our little daily deaths and devices, are all stories told...or waiting to be told.

And in my moment of clarity...I remember...that I am best suited to stand outside of it.  To remain less involved in the intricacies.  To forgo some of the simpler...more human pleasures...sometimes at certain personal cost...to instead...

Watch.

Learn.

Attempt to understand.

To craft from what I see, the stories I wish to tell, and the manner in which I wish to tell them.  I am not for some things, because I am instead for other things.  I get to observe. I get to build.  I get to design.  I get to be the architect of something different.  I get to chronicle our little tragedies.  And yes...

Yes...

Yes...

Sometimes it hurts like a motherfucker...but...

regardless...

This is a choice.  This is intentional.  I am not complaining.  I am not whining.  

I am grateful.  I am celebratory.

And there are many who would argue that perhaps I could have both.  That many others before me have found a way to make it work. Make it happen...and that may be...but...

I haven't.

And I have left destruction in the attempt.

Sometimes other...

Sometimes self...

I'd rather avoid both.

This is how I find the things I'm looking for.  This is where I discover the beauty that gives my life substance.  I know that I am not meant for some things...

and in not having those things...

I get to craft the stories about those things.

I get to see from the outside, all of the wonder that is less visible from inside.

Although sometimes...I can be distracted by some desire...

It is always in letting go, that I can see there is 

something

else.

Our stories may one day be our salvation.

I have no hope or pretense that I will write, act, or create anything so significant...

But if I find the one that is mine...

Well...