I don't know who actually reads this blog (except me :), but even if it is only me, it's good to write this stuff down.
This whole move and adjustment has been a whole hell of a lot harder for me than I ever imagined. After all, I've moved away before, even to a different country, and don't remember having this hard of a time (key word: "remember").
So after much thinking and talking and beating myself up (which is essential in any circumstance), I realized what's happening:
I'm terribly TERRIBLY homesick...and it's not just something I want to get over.
Being an only child, and not being as close to my extended family as I'd like (mostly for geographical reasons), I've never really understood the need for a family community, or the role that it plays in a person's life. So every time someone asked, "Won't you miss everyone?" I said, "Sure." but never really understood what that meant.
Now, having really only myself to rely on, and listen to, and deal with, I am beginning to understand.
In addition to my mother and my father (with whom I've thankfully been strengthening my relationships) my friends are all the family that I could ask for. Sure, I don't have any brothers or sisters, and won't ever know what that's like, but there's nothing I can do about that, and that doesn't prevent me from having deep and strong relationships and connections with people that aren't blood-relatives. And in New York, I most certainly, wonderfully, thankfully do.
And if it takes being on the complete other side of the world for me to learn that and appreciate that, then this whole thing was totally worth it.
Once I started to realize how much I miss everyone, I started re-evaluating my idea of "home". I've been saying quite a lot in my adult life that I just want to feel at home, or find home, and a lot of that was what prompted me to up and move to NZ. While it's glorious here, and I don't regret a moment of my decision-making process or the planning or the moving or the staying, it's taken that distance to make me realize that I think my home is where my "family" is. And that's back in New York.
Sure, I'm lonely, and a lot of this is coming from that place of loneliness, and I'm starting to make friends here and all, but it's really just not the same.
Upon further consideration, I realized that a lot of the issue is the idea of the permanence of this move: it's adds a ton of pressure to find the right friends, the right place to live, the right job, the right life...it's all so significant. Too significant.
But when I start entertaining the idea of moving back to NY (shock! horror!) after my program ends in November, that weight is lifted and I start focussing more on enjoying my studies and learning my way around, and exploring, and meeting new people...and it starts to feel like a 9-month holiday (plus school). Which is exactly what I needed.
Forgive me if you're one of the few people I've already emailed the following to, but this is what started to happen in my head once it shifted to this new attitude:
after talking to my mom and dad, and a few other friends, and feeling more comfortable with the idea of maybe coming back to NY after my school is done, i feel like a significant weight is lifted. not having the guilt of bearing that weight (of making this trip as"significant" as i was making it, or feeling like i had backed myself into a corner), all of these internal channels are starting to clear up, and some interesting stuff is coming through:
1- I am really rekindling my love for acting/theatre. Part of that is because that love has never died in me, but another part is because i'm away from where i felt like i constantly had to be producing/performing (NYC),
otherwise i couldn't really call myself an actor.
and yet even another part is that, without that pressure to"produce", and taking two theatre courses (now in NZ) in which performing is not a part of the equation, i am learning new things about theatre and how it can be seen and done and appreciated. it's really interesting, and i think is only enriching my knowledge base as a theatre practitioner...without having to perform, just to appreciate and learn from it.
2- Knowing this, I feel like that's a key to keeping it fresh for me: not to keep taking "scene study" classes that only become habit after a while, but studying theatre in ways that i haven't yet: Shakespeare, lighting design, writing, directing maybe...
3- So this experience, incredibly, is an adventure of another sort than what i expected it to be. I was so busy on dwelling on what it wasn't for me, and feeling like i had to make it work because i had made a big deal about coming and loftily thought i'd stay forever, that it was hard for me to see that this is so good for me in otherways: it got me out of the rut i was in.
A huge part of that rut was working at the Princeton Review, and this got me out of that.
Another was feeling beaten down by NY, and this got me out of that.
Another was feeling unfulfilled as an actor, and this is having an effect on that.
And knowing that I can, and probably will, come home in November and bring all of this with me, makes me so happy.
Mind you, I'm still staying open to things changing and staying IF I WANT TO, but i don't HAVE TO.
oh man, this is so big for me. i don't know if this makes any sense or if i've communicated it properly, but i really feel good about it.
