Happy New Year Father Time

So, here we are. In just a handful of hours, no more lucky ‘13, and onto the first day of a whole new ...twelve months of life.

It’s kind of funny that humans have to block things off in this way. It’s so ingrained in me that the first of January is the first of the year that it doesn’t often occur to me to think about how we, as humans, built that. We made up time. “Time” is a concept we need in order to understand cycles, aging, beginnings and ends of things. That was man-made, like automobiles and the internet. Without us, time doesn’t actually exist in the way we use it. Like – it doesn’t really exist at all. !!!

But time is very precious to us – to me. As I embark on this new year, and -in a few weeks - a new age to call myself, along with some enormous, “big-girl-pants” life changes, I have to say… time has been my best friend. Sure, I’m not a huge fan when I wake up late and have to rush to the train station, only to miss the 7:16 train because it decided to come at 7:14, and I gazed up at it from the street below, helpless (If only I had a lasso). But other than the rushing of it, time has been there for me in ways no human could be.

It makes sense to me that we call it “Father Time.” It’s as if Time understands something we do not, and pushes us forward while we resist it. Our ages. Our memories. We cling and hang on and try not to change like insolent children refusing to go to bed when we’re told, and we lose – every time.

But, as we grow, we recognize how it was all for our own good. We learn to appreciate him. Time has helped me learn how to continue to move on, no matter how much I wanted to cling to a moment of it. Time has helped me move on when every fiber of my being was filled with heartache and I couldn’t imagine feeling otherwise. With each day ending, and each new one beginning, he cleaned the slate for me. Time has been there to accompany me in the excruciatingly slow moments before an audition or performance, giving me a second to stop my pounding heart and clear my head. Time has been the parental figure allowing me to grow into my own, to blossom, to develop. And the hand on my shoulder, guiding me surely into the next step... The next year.

There is something nice about that divide from December to January. I’m perhaps a little superstitious, but I do believe how we enter in makes a difference in the year. Last year, I went into the new year cautiously… and I had a year of tentativeness in the midst of all the chaos. This year, I already have big plans for the upcoming months, and truly feel grateful for everything that ended in 2013, and everything waiting. No more caution. No more nervousness. Let time move us forward.

I hope everyone of you reading this finds the year ahead to be the greatest, most life-changing of years. I hope you ring it in joyfully, however you choose to. 

Happy New Year, my friends.

Tidings and Joy

On the 14th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

Five glasses of wine and a seasonal Flu.

I haven't been sick in, oh, probably about a year? I suppose the last time I was sick was December '12. December kills my immune system every year. It's the time of year where health is probably most important, because projects are always underway and audition season is putting the screws to every single singer in NYC. This year, each weekend I had either a singing engagement (Messiah, and lots of church-ly Bach), or auditions (or both), and while I swaddled my hands in gloves to keep from touching other peoples' germs on the subways, and drank my weight in Emergen-C, it was bound to happen: In came blizzard 'Electra' last Saturday, and in with it came my sinus infection. Or flu. Or whatever this thing is.

Since then I've had lots of days at work spent sniffling and abusing the tea stash in the kitchen, took a day off to try to sleep it completely out of my system, overdosed on echinacea, zicam and vitamin C, and still... have no voice. WOE.

Tonight's special so far is spicy Thai soup, tea with whiskey in it (I guess that makes it a hot toddy), and a huge glass of water with Apple Cider vinegar. (Supposed to raise your pH levels, I guess?). I will get well by tomorrow, dammit.

Anyway, given the down time, I have given thought to what 2013 was for me. I'm not going to go on a rant about how "Glad I am it's almost 2014, omg 2013 was the hardest year EVERRR". No offense to those who feel this way. I know the year was a toughie. But, it was not to blame for the hardships, it was just a year we were living in, and it was doing its best to move along quickly.

And move on quickly it did.

I will say, within the year 2013, I went through so many changes and stages that I truly am not the same person. Does that count? It must. Already I am embracing 2014, but not because I'm wanting to leave this year behind - because I am so excited for the coming year I can hardly stand it.

2013 was a year of healing, both for myself and for my family. 2012 was the year we lost loved ones with such catastrophic force (no apologies for the drama within that sentence, because it was dramatic and catastrophic for us), that we sort of looked at each other by the time Christmas came going "okay, what now?" Shell-shocked and rather terrified. We spent Christmas 2012 hunkered down in Albany holding family meetings and attempting to get through our spells of grief and moodiness. I already touched on this with Thanksgiving, and it doesn't bear repeating. We were eager to make big changes in 2013, even hard ones - like leaving jobs, or leaving relationships. We did so with our teeth gritted and our emotions barely at bay, but we made it here, and we're all better for it. From losses in the family, and losses of dear friends, to accidents that could have been tragic and turned into triumph. From job loss, to gain, to loss again. From identity crisis ... to fully embracing whatever identity this has become.

I, personally, am always going to look back fondly on 2013. It was not the hardest year of my life, because I chose not to let it be, and was surrounded by people who wouldn't let me stumble in that. It became the year I really learned to take control of what happiness means for me - and realized how much more important that is than anything else.

Merry Christmas. Be healthy. Be happy. Don't settle for a single year being a year you cannot wait to get out of... but here's to 2014 being the best one we've ever had.

Acting

Today I was thinking about how good it is to move. 

I mean, physically move. 

I spend a lot of time in my head. (Surprise?) I've learned how to channel that, so it isn't just useless thought - it's generally good, balanced, "What is going on here?" thought, or "Are you acknowledging this thing in your life?" thought. Then again, I also spend a ton of time in my own dream world imagining ridiculousness. It's hard for me to balance - honestly, I don't mind that this is an issue for me. It's entertaining.

But the last few weeks have been very action packed. Well, actually the last few months have been, but in the past 14 days I have had one spontaneous move after another. New office. New work to do. New opportunities. Sudden solo gigs I didn't feel quuuite  ready for (and that was an adventure I needed to shake me out of perfectionism, if there ever was one). Now we're onto planning for 2014. Today there are auditions. Tomorrow there are concerts. I feel overwhelmed, but very pleased with it all, and somehow have still had time to catch up or reunite with the people I care so much about - even if the catch up time is on a small scale, or just a moment or two. I'm grateful for that.

It's good to be "acting," in life. It's good to have the movement, the need to GO, the excitement. But, I do look forward to a quieter pace sometime down the line, if that is in the cards. 

"Passing" On the Holidays

I have been fruitlessly attempting to come up with a post about Thanksgiving. The truth is, nothing I write in here works, or sounds too trite, or is just downright ... kind of fake. So I'm going to be un-fake and write how I really feel about the holidays right now, and I hope you will all keep an open mind. And, you know, not call me emo and stuff.

This is just one lowly opinion, and I promise I am not anti-holidays.

For most families, I hear the holidays are a time of joy and celebration. Laughter, music, food, togetherness, dancing through snowflake-filled-scenes of pine trees and carolers and snowmen or menorahs. Thanksgiving is the precursor to a full month of food just like it and fireplace-lit evenings filled with time together with big grins on. It is a warm, beautiful Norman Rockwell painting of a time for those families. It is what they look forward to. ... This is what I'm told.

My family has, truthfully, never really known such scenes in the past 20 years. We are a happy, loving family who likes the lower-pressure months of summer or late winter/ spring best. Months where there are very few celebrations, and we can quietly do our thing. We cook and spend time together much like that previous paragraph describes. But, actual holidays are a time when I think we have all generally longed for a year where we could just "pass." There are a few blazing reasons for this - we are a solidly joyful bunch of people - but the main one is grief.

To begin, let me just say... I know every family knows grief and loss at some time or another, and many reading this are sympathizing, probably even more than I, with what I am writing. I'm not meaning to be negative, it's just a reality: it's very hard to celebrate family memories when you deeply miss a family member whose absence is felt painfully enough throughout the year. I suck at faking anything, and faking a big happy "Oh man I LOVE the holiday season!!! Peppermint Mocha LATTE, please!" would fool no one.

Without going into all of the sad and depressing details of who we've lost or how, the description of the holidays is occasionally a bit darker than what it always seems like it's "supposed" to be. We try as hard as we can to avoid thinking about the changing landscape of what our "togetherness" means. We flip past the photos that have been brought out this time of year, including the faces of the people who will not be joining us. We each feel a conflicting combination of comfort in each others' presence, and overwhelming anxiety at the amount of people stuffed into one space - many of whom are feeling the exact same emotions. Alcohol is avoided like the plague, because otherwise it is just tempting to overuse it, which leads to one of us dragging the other out into the street to "take a walk" (But that's always a danger with alcohol and families ;) ). Conversation is either therapeutic or dismally lonely. It's just one of those paradoxes: this time of year is supposed to bring comfort and joy... and because it's supposed to bring those things, many times it also brings to light the reasons we don't feel that way. The oddest thing. I can't explain it. But it's how my family is feeling.

I am not saying this is how it is every year, and the past year has been harder than normal because we lost Lynn and haven't adjusted to that reality fully - the holidays tend to be this big fat reality check, it seems. There have been so many moments over the course of the past year where I have just wished I could respond to everyone's insistence that I have a GREAT Thanksgiving or Christmas with "Oh, I'm actually not doing them this year! Have a great one though!!" Get a year-long clean slate, and spend it doing absolutely nothing special for a few weeks, and then emerge the next year full of energy and ready for a brand new Holiday Season. That way, when I'm uncharacteristically quiet and cranky during the holidays, people won't wonder what the hell is wrong with me for being down during "the most wonderful time of the year" - they'll just figure "Oh right, Julie's not doing holidays this year. Whatever." (Shrug).

At the same time, though, I know I need to learn to just do that anyway. Start fresh, every year, rather than hang on to the memories of growing up that bring me so much longing.

Maybe that's what I will try for this year.