On Fear and Vulnerability

Do one thing a day that scares you.


You see it on "inspirational" shopping bags (looking at you, Lululemon), blogs, pinterest, and hear it from your friends and guidance counselors.  Being scared and challenged is generally a sign you're doing something right.

I sure hope so.

I've never been good with fear.  I'm rotten with vulnerability (an unfortunate trait for an actor, I guess).  But for some reason, my life has led me on this chutes-and-ladders windy trajectory and I've rarely found jobs that bore me.  In fact, I'm terrified most of the time.  I re-live the first-day-of-school experience every couple of months.  I have no vocational or fiscal security.  There is no settling; only career-climbing.  I'm never not a student.  I'm never good enough.  I live and work with a new set of strangers all the time.  You meet them, you learn them, you love them, you leave them.  Sometimes, you keep in touch.  Sometimes, it was fun while it lasted and you move on.

I'm a little ADD by nature, so I guess it works for me.  I play dress up for a living.  Theater people are the best (read: BEST) people.  They're family.  They don't have to work to be--it's just the way it goes.  It's how theater people do.  And I really, truly wouldn't have it any other way.  And you can say it's called show-business for a reason.  If it were meant for making friends, they'd call it "show-friends."  But with certain people, the connection is pretty unavoidable and I'm not sorry about it.

Day after tomorrow, I move to Japan.

JUH-PAN, y'all.

A place I've ever had a hankering to visit?  Not particularly.  I'm going to perform at Disneyland.  As a country western singer.  (Singer.  Not dancer.  A singer.  What?)

Let me count the ways I find this positively frightening:
1. I'm employed in an Eastern country.
2.  I don't speak the language of said country.
3. I'm going to live in a place for 7 months I've never visited.
4. I will be doing the same show 3-4 times a day, 5 days a week, for 7 months.
5. I won't be dancing.
6. I will be singing.
7. I'm employed as a singer.
8. I'm missing Christmas with my family entirely.
9. Northpark isn't in Toyko.
10. Neither is White Rock Coffee and uptown yoga and my silks classes nor my dance classes nor the classes I teach.

But I will find this new world and make a small piece of it my own.  I will pretend to be confident and sure of myself.  I won't have to pretend to be excited.  I'm thrilled already.  Some of my lovely theater people stateside have friends working at TDL (Tokyo Disneyland) and have set me up with them on Facebook.  The kindness they've shown me even online has been comforting and made the whole anticipation that much better.

Now, let me count the ways I find this thrilling:
1. I'm frightened.
2. None of this is in my comfort zone.
3. I have no choice but to learn.
4. And learn more.
5. Learn about my craft, learn about stamina, endurance, living and working with the same people, self-sufficiency, learn about another country, learn some of a new language, learn to be 23.
6. Tokyo seems like the coolest.
7. Mount Fuji.
8. Adventures. Paid-for adventures.
9. Disney.  Living next door to Prince Charming and Cinderella.
10. Independence.

I'm nervous. I'm excited.  I'm scared.  I can't wait.  I'm exhausted and I'm going to be even moreso. I'm going to be an Asian Disney princess. I'm practically Mulan.

I'm an adult.  I have the best job ever.  I have the best life ever.  Let's be scared.  Let's do this.  Let's go.


“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.” 
― Madeleine L'Engle