Terrorists.

This morning I woke up to my overly-chipper alarm after a nightmare in which I was running in circles in a building, attempting not to get shot by some invisible force behind me.

This was a nightmare I had after scrolling through Facebook and reading all-too-vivid news reports of the Orlando shooting. I wasn't at all surprised I had this dream.

When the Paris attacks happened in November, I remember a similar sickened feeling as I read survival accounts of what took place at the Bataclan during a concert. A war zone at an event filled with innocent people, most of whom would absolutely never go to war or harm another living soul.

Most of us never want to hurt anyone.

But so many of us are getting hurt.

A wealthy privileged Stanford athlete gets away with 6 months in jail after violently sexually assaulting a woman at a party... but 50 + innocent, most likely loving, non-violent party-goers are sentenced to immediate death in a nightclub. Just for living their lives. For loving who they love. For being who they are - who they have every right to be.

What disturbs me the most is that not everyone sees how wrong this is. Not everyone sees how these deaths, even if they were gay, a different religion, a different race from you, effect EVERYONE. It means none of us is safe. This kind of mass murder has happened in Kindergartens, in mosques, in colleges, in nightclubs, in public parks, in restaurants in Paris, in stadiums, no matter who you are, no matter what you believe, we live in an era where we are killing one another for no reason. No matter what sins or crimes you committed - even if you've lived your life without doing a single wrong to another human being. You are a target - everyone is. Everyone.

This is the time we live in: we are the terrorists. Not ISIS, or the mentally unstable who shoot up 26 people in an elementary school, or the police, or whomever-else-you-want-to-blame. Humans have become terrorists.

Electing Donald Trump is not a fix.

Facebooking your political, religious, or just plain ignorant opinion of how people should live their lives is not a fix.

Getting rid of guns will not be a fix (although, it would've helped if that asshole couldn't get his hands on an AR-15-type assault rifle. But whatever, details.)

Me writing this post is (obviously) not a fix.

Moving away is not a fix (believe me).

As long as we hold onto our ignorant, limited, hateful views of one another, this will continue. It may not be the same group of people inflicting pain each time, but it will always be linked with one thing: Hate. Judgment of others. A need to be right, to control, to condemn.

The only fix I can see is to look inside ourselves and find the ways WE each are terrorists. Who do you judge, blame, hate, dislike, or hold anger towards? Who have you imagined hurting, even just a little, even just with words?

All it takes is that small amount of hostility within each of us. Born of fear, bred into the worst kind of evil. Not one of us is right, or purely good. I'm not - I'll admit I've held on to blind anger towards others, even hatred. Maybe I've never wanted to make anyone suffer, but it's there, and without dealing with that accurately or in a healthy way, it goes wild. I'm just one person, and I've been given a life filled with therapy, self-observation and encouragement to view others with as much of an open mind as possible.

Maybe we didn't carry the assault weapons, or carry out the attacks.. But we are all guilty, and we are all responsible. And today, to say "I'm sorry" for the hundreds of brothers and sisters I have lost in the past year feels pathetic. I'm not sorry. I'm angry - at myself, at humans, and at our inability to evolve as a race. It's on us at this point if we want to survive or dwindle into extinction.

One Year in Amsterdam

When I think back on this week a year ago, it reminds me of the first week in college, or at summer camp. Even though I was 30, had toughed it out in NYC for almost five years, and certainly didn't feel new to traveling alone or in a European city... I felt tiny and vulnerable walking around Amsterdam - my new home. 

My first realization was that I had picked a country where the worlds' tallest human beings dwell (I am barely over 5'). My second was that Dutch is an extremely complicated language to pick up if you've only spoken English and smatterings of French for your entire life. Life challenges: Go!

On June 8th, (my first full day in the Netherlands) I woke up jetlagged and groggy to a few notes Sera left for me, and however many Nespresso pods I could get my hands on. I didn't really have anything to do except settle in, get my apartment keys made, and so on, but I still felt overwhelmed. "The bakery is on Maasstraat. Keys are across from Blokker." Her notes read simply and clearly, typical of Sera, so I set out on my way, day 1 of this Dutch experience, no idea what was in store for me. 

Coming from the routine of my NYC life (wake up, work at 10AM, home around 7, maybe yoga, maybe dinner out, probably some laundry or something, blah blah blah), with its stable income and predictable day-to-day, this entirely new world at my fingertips was something I still can't wrap my head around or describe. It sounds awesome (and, of course, it was), but at the time I just kept thinking... "what the hell am I doing???" I felt like I was skipping school, breaking the rules, rebelling. I was aware of how very far away my entire life was... and if I'm honest, that was the main thing comforting me alongside Amsterdam's insane beauty and the Stroopwaffles on every store shelf.

I have always been proud of my life and what's been given to me, but I was not a happy person when I left the States, and embarking on an adventure this large felt slightly reckless at the time. I had just been suddenly laid off, felt completely rejected by many aspects of my life in NYC, and was very unsure of what to trust in the world. I saw myself, at 30 years old, settling for things that made me feel miserable or helpless. Seeing some truly messed up behaviors in others, and shrugging it off because "well, that's just how it goes..." 

I felt like I was experiencing things that didn't (and shouldn't) fit my life at all. Colleagues in my profession who judged and shamed one another as if they were still in high school. A dating scene filled with self-proclaimed 'ballers' (players), who cheated and lied and shamelessly disrespected women - it seems like anyone from NYC adjusts to that as a dating 'norm', but I could not handle it as a reality of relationships in our culture. 'Words' like 'ghosting,' 'negging,' 'dtf', 'side piece,' and so on were all a part of regular conversation while I lived in that city, and it's sad to look back on now. We laughed when we found out about the double lives led by people who had been intimate with us, because what else would we do? Cry into our drinks in silence? I guess at times we did that, too. I suppose a city that large, with so many mixed viewpoints and cultures, is bound to create a lot of challenges to the dating scene... but what amazed me were the repeat examples of just a lack of human decency, which should be a fundamental concept at this point. These things made my life in NY feel heavy, confusing, and way too complicated.

There are so many things in New York that I love, and I will always think of it as my first home... but when I left for Europe, I felt eager to fully start over. Maybe it was just an end of a chapter that made me 'one, two, step' outta there, but if I'm going to share the motivating thoughts that made me want to find a new way of life, well, here they are (were). 

Well, that, and the fact that I suddenly had months ahead of me to use wisely, and when someone presents an opportunity like "Come to Europe, sing some opera, decide what you want to do from there" and you have severance pay and nothing keeping you rooted ---- you go to Europe. 

Running off to be an Expat wasn't a traditional game plan for moving on, but it actually wasn't even the plan at the time. I just kept thinking 'What better way to strengthen who I am, and what I've done with my life, than to go learn from new worlds/ cultures/ languages??' And that was my motivation. After day one, keys made, connections laid out and a few quick gigs to keep me on my feet, one week quickly led to the next, and the next. Suddenly, I was in a movement class in a Dutch National Opera rehearsal room, and coaching 'Caro Nome' with their Opera Studio vocal coach. I was learning how to mime as part of their opera workshop. I was presenting my materials in the small theater, and then being told over coffee by the director of that summer program that I should stay in Europe and sing. And when a director of an opera program in Europe recommends that you move to Europe to continue singing as a professional ---- you move to Europe. Especially if you already love it there. 

What I have to wholeheartedly celebrate is what happened after those first days and weeks here. The months that unfolded last summer empowered me in ways I had never known before. I kept finding myself walking down the streets to a rehearsal or audition without stress or concern, even when I was running late. If I missed the tram, it was okay, I hopped on a bike. If my friends proposed we go to Spain for a week or London and I could afford it, I went, eager to find out what that would show me. I stopped setting out to 'make something happen,' and I started waiting to see what was supposed to happen. I opted, always, to do what felt best to me. To step out of my comfort zone, as long as that outer area still felt right to me. I started standing up to people who had walked all over me. I stopped holding myself back.

To describe the lessons and experiences of this past year in full would be to sit down and write a novel -- and perhaps I will one day. In spite of homesickness for my family and friends in the US, I found a home here in Amsterdam that I truly have never had before. I fell in love with the streets around me, the pace of the city, the language (as impossible as it feels to learn), the friends I made here, the family I established here, and the person I am, who maybe didn't fit in as well to the home I made in New York, but is who she is because of it.

So, here I go into year two - not just of living in Europe, but of living in this era of my life. I hope that anyone reading this wondering if they can really go after their craziest dreams will consider taking the risk. It doesn't have to be with a full year in mind; it can be as simple as saying "For this month, I'm going to try to make this one thing happen that I've never done but wanted to." For me, that one month led to this blog post. 

Thanks for sharing the ride with me.