Running All the Time

And here we are again. I now live in a house in Murray with six other girls (or is it seven?). We’ll see how this goes. I’m sitting amid boxes in an otherwise sparse room, sprawled out on the floor because I haven’t journaled in four days and so much has happened. I moved, for one thing. It was hellish; I have no idea where anything is. Half of my stuff is still sitting outside, including my bed, and my social anxiety is dialed up way too high to go back downstairs and ask someone to help me move my mattress. Sleeping on the floor? I’m exhausted; it doesn’t seem that bad.

This is what happens when you try to move while rehearsing two shows that open in less than a month. We had our first rehearsal for Neil Simon’s Rumors tonight, which opens next Thursday. I might be insane. It’s so much fun, but I’m cramming down this memorization like a college freshman before finals. Lunch break? Studying the script. Before bed? Studying the script. Pretty much any spare second? Studying that freaking script. The cast is dynamite; they crack me up every second and I'm so glad I get to work with them. Oh, theatre people. Much love.

I’m also involved with a Broadway revue called When I Grow Up. This might not have been obvious about me, but I simply adore singing. I get to sing in “So Much Better” from Legally Blonde (a five-star show in my book), which is one of the most empowering anthems I know of. I also sing “Louder Than Words”, “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme,” and “Hard Candy Christmas.” I had never heard the last one, but boy howdy is it perfect or what? (Link at the end of the post.)

If you’ve wondered why I’m running myself ragged (pretty much every second of my life is scheduled until August), it’s simple. I’d rather collapse exhausted into bed each night (or onto the floor, as the case may be) than curl up in a ball and cry for two hours. That's not what I've been doing with all my days off, but I'm taking precautions. When you’re too busy to think you’re too busy to feel. That’s how life works, right? Of course right.

What am I reading? I only read one book last month. That hasn't happened in years. #shameful But I am reading two general conference talks a day, as well as half an hour of scripture study. This is for my soul. Then there is music, which is also for my soul. Fall Out Boy’s latest album, American Beauty / American Psycho has been in my cd player for about a week straight now. (Seriously, “Jet Pack Blues” and “Favorite Record.” And all of the songs.) I hope to eventually put aside the angst and graduate back to other bands, like Passenger and Taylor Swift, but Passenger makes me cry almost with the opening chords, and Taylor Swift? Someday. Someday I’ll get back to her.

Although learning a new process at work is supposed to lighten my work load in the long run, right now I’m doing two people’s jobs and feeling swamped with each. Today I got into the office at 8:30 and went into a four hour training session about ICs, my new process. At the end of that, brain thoroughly mushed, I went back to my desk with the intent of getting some work done. However the phones were off the hook, and a special investigator brought in thirteen verifications (thirteen!) and I got about five ICs processed before realizing that it was 5:15 and time to go to rehearsal.

Because, you know, I just got the script for a show that opens next week.

Everybody has their coping mechanisms. Depression isn’t always shattering plates and weeping in the pouring rain. Sometimes it’s hiding in your room because you’re too scared to say hello to your new roommates, changing the subject every time someone asks how you are, and keeping your schedule so packed you don’t know whether you’re coming or going half the time.

 

I don’t know, friends. I just don’t know. Like I said, I’m listening to General Conference talks daily, and reading the scriptures is a valued part of my routine. I feel faith, and the peaceful calm that comes with it, in glimpses. Snatches. A few minutes here and there. 

Hold the phone.

You know what I would put almost in the category of miraculous? 

Right as I was typing those last few sentences, which were going to end something along the lines of “But my soul is troubled still” or some such attempt at being poetic, one of my new roommates knocked on the door and asked if I wanted help moving up the mattress. If not a miracle, certainly a tender mercy of the Lord. We chatted about our jobs, and spiders, and the password to the internet, then said good night. It was nothing. A trifle. But my heart is lighter now; the looming darkness has retreated a few paces. It’s funny how God works.

A scripture that’s been on my mind today:

“Be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that Christ, the Lord God Omnipotent may seal you His, that you may be brought to heaven, that ye may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of Him who created all things in heaven and in heart, who is God above all.” -Mosiah 5:15

And in the end/ I'd do it all again/ I think you're my best friend...... 

I clung to you/ Like cat hair clings to a woolen shirt/ You needed me/ Like a wedding dress needs dirt..... 

 I'll be fine and dandy/ It's like a/ Hard candy Christmas/ I'm barely getting through tomorrow/ Still I won't let sorrow bring me way down