It’s been a spell since I put thought to paper, and I gotta say, it was all because of superstition. I have been cautious to allow myself a moment to reflect, ponder, accept the truth of my situation, and I think given the months that have passed, it’s high time I allow the truth to come out.
I am blissfully, peacefully, utterly happy. I have finally finally FINALLY found what I’ve been needing and wanting and yearning for. I have found home.
Six months ago, I was a wreck. I was stressed to the point of desperation, pulled in a million directions that I didn’t want to be stretched. My job made me feel, on an hourly basis (whether I was on company time or not) as though I was an idiot, incompetent, inefficient. I had no outlet, no positive reinforcement to pick me up, other than those who loved me, who encouraged my discouraged soul with words of inspiration that didn’t seem to click anymore. I was anxious, surrounded by so many angry strangers, so many unhappy faces, that I found myself drowning in a sea of sulkiness. It was few and far between the times I got to spend with good souls (Fashion Jess, this means you!), and I felt if something didn’t change, FAST, I would be lost for good.
I spent years being lonely in one of the most overpopulated cities in the US. I could count on one hand the acquaintances I had made that actually kept in touch on a regular basis. I was heartbroken by the countless times I had tried to forge some sort of bond or connection with a new person or group, only to have them flake out and disappear from existence, as if they were some apparition I had created to stave off the loneliness. I had grown accustomed to a life where all I did was sleep, eat, work, and watch television. No social activity, no hope for doing any of the things that I’d set out to do in this life. Theatre and acting had all been lost. Writing took so much energy to commit to. Even venturing out of the house to get the laundry felt arduous. I didn’t feel like I mattered. In a city where thousands of people want you to know THEY MATTER, I didn’t matter to ME anymore because I was not important to anyone, particularly myself. The gal who was scrappy and sassy and funny and goofy and dramatic and outgoing had become a shell for a lost woman who just wanted someone to know I was here, I was alive.
You know what was lost? Hope. Dreams. I stopped caring about me. I figured, what’s the point? I felt invisible in Los Angeles, unimportant, and I didn’t want to leave my apartment, instead holing myself up with the Big Guy and Fiy, often drowning my self-pity in a sorrowful brew. I had stopped going to the gym because I found the experience to be altogether too depressing, having to fight my way past juiced-up and glistening Venuses and Adoni (is that the plural for Adonis?) just to run my fat ass for a few minutes. No one said “Hi” back, no matter where I was. No one made eye contact. If I needed to sneak my car into traffic, no one would allow me the chance to merge in. Isn’t that a metaphor for the life I was living? Just let me in, people! I know others don’t share my experience, and I thank God for that. I don’t disparage Los Angeles—it just turns out that the city of Angels wasn’t for me.
So it took a major leap of faith to think I might find a scrap of happiness in the Midwest. I had run out of hope, had given up on prayers for guidance. I was taking a long shot, but it was the last one I had to take. I had fallen in love with Michigan some years prior on a trip with The Big Guy, and I would often find myself clinging to the memory of the area as a solace to my disillusionment. And sure, I’ve heard from nearly everyone(!) that I am crazy to choose Michigan for sunny California. I’ll take crazy for miserable any day of the week.
The alienation that I felt in Los Angeles was all too damaging, and I could genuinely feel the affects of it when, as we made our way cross country to Michigan, a stranger in a restaurant in Kansas tapped me on the shoulder to have a polite conversation about IPhones (on which I had keenly focusing my attention so as to not have to bear being in a sea of ignoring strangers) and I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO HAVE SMALL TALK ANYMORE. I literally found myself panicking, wonder what this stranger’s motivations were—why would he want to talk to ME? What could I possibly offer him? And how could he see me when I’ve been invisible for so long? As I struggled to carry on the exchange, I realized we left LA not a moment too soon.
What have I found since departing from Los Angeles on that balmy day in May, as neighbors who’d never bothered to wave back scraped the furniture we couldn’t fit in the truck down the street to their modest duplexes-- Quiet, wide open spaces, with lush green fields and trees of all shapes and sizes. I’ve found a place for my beloved pooch to run free without the annoying neighbor feigning fear that he should happily bounce her way. I found that though I hold the same position I did in LA, I can now proudly shout from the rooftops that I LOVE my job, I LOVE my team, I LOVE my company, derive inspiration, knowledge, laughs and true spirit from my fellow managers and associates. I love that even though I drive 30+ minutes to work, I don’t sit in angry, bumper-to-bumper traffic but cruise down a highway bordered by trees and old, beautiful cemeteries. I love that I come home to a HOME, where I find family who I genuinely love and care about and can’t wait to see every day. I love that after years of forgetting how to be ME, I’m starting to find Shannon again.
And I’m doing a play… me! I know, shocking.
It’s just the beginning of my life again. And as the trees’ leaves begin to burst with beautiful ambers, golds and reds as I see my first Autumn in ages, I am bustling with hopes, dreams, and eagerness for the coming change of seasons, the possibilities that exist when I finally find what my soul needed.
