You know those games that you play, back in the day, in the before times when you'd go into the office. That get-to-know-you game, is also called an ice breaker.
"If you weren't working this awesome job, right here (insert eye rolls, some of them sincere), what would you be doing right now?" And the answer is often in a similar vein. Half serious. Some of them are really far-fetched. But I always say the same thing.
I would be writing sitcoms.
I would be sitting in a windowless room littered with water bottles that smell of farts.
I am a romantic but I know what this would be like.
I love working in teams. I love working things out together, out loud in a boisterous group. I love creating tension and then finding comic relief. Where you're all responsible for creating magic in the space.
I love theatre for that very reason. You take this magical space, fill it with magic for a moment in time, and then it becomes a black box again. Awaiting the next murder, romance, heartache, misery, joy, and sorrow.
I feel like my most honest self was my 21-year-old self. She felt invincible. No one told her that she couldn't win a Tony. No one told her that she wouldn't win an Oscar. No one told her that she wouldn't write amazing stories. No one squelched her dreams like they do to 10 years olds who want to be Olympic track stars. No one told her any of these things because she didn't tell anyone. These hopes and dreams were bubbles at the top of a soda can waiting to be released once you punched through the aluminum with the tab. And she was ready. She was ready to move to New York. (She was less ready to move to LA.) And the Peace Corps took her down one path. And then life took her down another. Some plays have been written. Some beauty has been made.
The can has mostly sat on the self.
Until a global pandemic knocked it over.
An insufferable job pushed it off the shelf.
And a touch of cancer dented the sides.
And now no one dares open it up.
This is what happens when a dream is deferred.
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