Dreams Are Painful

 Been watching Encore on Disney+ again. There's always at least one kid in every high school musical who wants to go to Broadway. Sometimes they go and fail, sometimes they don't go at all, sometimes they think they're still going to go with truly no plan or plot to do so. Dreams are dreams I guess.

There is pain in those teen dreams. Big, unnamable pain. To watch the touring production of a show from a balcony and think "I could do that and I want to do that but I have no idea how to do that and part of me knows I never will and that world will always be, exactly as I see it now, another world." There were other people who watched from the same adolescent cheap seats and thought, "I can't wait to do that!" With abandon. And maybe they did or maybe they became barbers. (According to Encore, at least.) Or maybe they got really close and are inching closer, but there are still always going to be people, usually unintentionally ignorant, who don't understand how incredible being so close is.

I knew that pain and absorbed it and decided to be small because that's what seemed realistic. I met with an advisor for ______ and said I was interested in the theatre conservatory, which was supposedly TOP NOTCH. The advisor, without knowing anything about me besides the fact that I went to public school in St. Louis and had no summer stock credits or New York workshops under my belt, told me I wouldn't get in. And I believed that stranger. Why wouldn't I? She had an official polo on.

The good news is I don't like acting that much. I did then, but I think this turn in tide was inevitable, so I am grateful I wasn't in the deep end, potentially in mountains of debt, trying to make that adjustment. Instead I stayed in the kiddie pool, wading for what would be suitable for an average person like me and gradually walked forward until one day my toes didn't touch.

And now I am full-out swimming, which can be exciting, but brings a whole new level of pain. Pain that couldn't have been considered at 17. Pain of almost getting a dream job and not and then seeing billboards for that dream job everywhere. And then asking yourself if you're going to masochistically watch the dream job or ignore it at let the dream die. There's a whole THIRD level of pain to GET said dream job and fight inside of it about what should happen there and maybe you don't win and you have to be part of a thing you end up not even loving the way you thought you would. Or worse yet, you get the dream job, you fight for your voice in it, you win, you share the dream job with the world, and they DESPISE IT. I mean! Dreams are painful!

There's Only One

After a full decade relationship with the series, I finally finished One Tree Hill. In high school a friend lent me the DVDs so I could join in on the lunch table discussion. I was sad that fall. I couldn't sleep one night, so I watched the first episode. There was something right about One Tree Hill. Yes, it's a teen soap. Yes, the main characters got married at the end of the first season (also known as their junior year), but the feel was real. A high school that maybe didn't always exist, but one that sometimes did. Something resonated. I watched until four AM that night. And when I slept, I slept well.

It went from bad to terrible fast. Too many kidnappings, exhausted heart transplant plot lines, a stalker step-brother. You know. It's trash. The last good season was Four. It lasted 'til Nine. But there was always a bit of sweetness at the bottom of the cup.

The final season was fine. The producer must have known. The characters waded around in superficial messes. But I will miss you, One Tree Hill. There is always something about the end television. These people who guided you for more than a third of you life--they no longer exist. These people who once got you through that long night as a confused teenager.

Me at the River Court. Yes, I visited the set. 2011.

It's the oldest story in the world. One day you're seventeen and planning for someday. And then quietly and without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life.

Missing Michael Scott Already

Today I watched last week's and last night's episodes of The Office, and I cried during both. I love The Office. I have since I saw my first episode--Jim's Party--in George's basement in the fall of 2005. It's one of five shows I have seen from beginning to present (or end), and it is my favorite of them all.

I love Michael Scott.

Can we get a hallelujah for TV really quick? Because, yeah, sometimes it sucks. It's trashy or way focused on consumerism and marketing or, you know, it's just a never-ending train wreck of drama because that's supposedly the point of television? But, WOW, a movie could not ever get me as close to anyone as I am to Michael. I have spent years with Michael Scott. Two hours, no matter how brilliant, could never do the same.

And maybe some would argue that THAT'S why TV is poison--it makes us get close to people who are fictional when real people surround us. I disagree. I think Michael Scott has not disillusioned me with my own social interactions. He has made me be more loving. In real life, I would hate Michael. But, because I didn't ACTUALLY have to interact with him, I laughed at him, and then I grew to care about him, and now I cry to see him leave.

The ship awash our rudder gone.
The rats have fled but I'm hanging on.