..closing the faire chapter..
Rather than say the same thing over and over again, I'll attempt to respond to your individual posts regarding mine about faire here. Plus, it helps me to sort things out in my brain to type it, and for your spare time's sake, I will try to condense what I'm feeling enough that you can understand, even if the finer details are in absence.
I can't fully understand it myself, and at times I find myself using depression as an excuse, but I'm not entirely certain I'm depressed, either, or if I'm just growing up and moving on. Lord knows I have enough things to be depressed about, my family and the issues there being the largest contributer, and the semi-random and overwhelming needs to just cry for seemingly no reason at all helps to make me think that perhaps I really have fallen into a somewhat inexplicable depression that I should seek help for. But otherwise, I think maybe I'm just having a hard time accepting that I want nothing to do with what I've loved and enjoyed so passionately for the past seven years anymore..
It's strange, it feels like it was out of nowhere, but on the other hand I know that I was feeling a bit burned last season and even growing tired of some of the gigs I do on a regular basis. But I heartily enjoyed performing at Kearney in November, and excitedly looked forward to Calaveras nearly every day after, and then it just struck me out of nowhere. The symposium might have been a catalyst--I was rather annoyed with the whole mandatory bit, and I don't like to think that this enjoyable hobby is being made into a payless job, or anything remotely similar to the Pattersons' events, but even that seems like hardly enough to push me over the edge.
As Guildenstern mused, there must have been some point where I could have said no, but somehow I missed it. Somehow I must have just let every grievance, annoyance, and idiosyncracy get to me. At Calaveras I thought I was just discontent being a noble (it's not nearly so free or fun), but after Calaveras I kept trying to convince myself it's more fun as a peasant, but instead grew more and more convinced that it's just not fun at all anymore. I just don't enjoy it. I can't find joy in it. At Visalia I helped think up several new gigs that I find funny and entertaining, but I have zero desire whatsoever to be a part of them.
I'd rather watch them. I long to be a spectator again, a mundane, a person who knows nothing of the life and is simply enchanted by it. I know I can't have that again, unless I go back east where it's all different, but the point is--I have no passion for it anymore. Any of it; even the drumming.. I love the people, but I almost hate the "game". It took me almost an hour to get dressed Saturday simply because I didn't want to don the garments and go out there, and when I finally did I just looked around the park, at all the opportunities for me to interact passing me by, and I couldn't muster up even an ounce of want or need to even say "Good morrow" to a passer by. Last season I couldn't stand to let an opportunity to interact pass me by.
It's very depressing. I'm calmer about it than I thought I would be, and I've always known I wouldn't spend the rest of my life doing faire, but I figured at least another 5 years. Still, it's just sad because it's happened so fast and I love the people so much, but I just don't feel it in me anymore. I don't feel a part of it. I feel disconnected, and all of that makes me deeply sad. But again, on the one hand I have plenty of things/feelings/events leading me to believe that I'm just growing out of it and have been over the past year or two, and on the other there are plenty of things to suggest that I'm suffering from depression and it's sucking the life right out of me.
And how lifeless I felt at Visalia is not how I want to feel anymore. I first started working faire at Valhalla 7 years ago, and that is where I choose to end it.
I can't fully understand it myself, and at times I find myself using depression as an excuse, but I'm not entirely certain I'm depressed, either, or if I'm just growing up and moving on. Lord knows I have enough things to be depressed about, my family and the issues there being the largest contributer, and the semi-random and overwhelming needs to just cry for seemingly no reason at all helps to make me think that perhaps I really have fallen into a somewhat inexplicable depression that I should seek help for. But otherwise, I think maybe I'm just having a hard time accepting that I want nothing to do with what I've loved and enjoyed so passionately for the past seven years anymore..
It's strange, it feels like it was out of nowhere, but on the other hand I know that I was feeling a bit burned last season and even growing tired of some of the gigs I do on a regular basis. But I heartily enjoyed performing at Kearney in November, and excitedly looked forward to Calaveras nearly every day after, and then it just struck me out of nowhere. The symposium might have been a catalyst--I was rather annoyed with the whole mandatory bit, and I don't like to think that this enjoyable hobby is being made into a payless job, or anything remotely similar to the Pattersons' events, but even that seems like hardly enough to push me over the edge.
As Guildenstern mused, there must have been some point where I could have said no, but somehow I missed it. Somehow I must have just let every grievance, annoyance, and idiosyncracy get to me. At Calaveras I thought I was just discontent being a noble (it's not nearly so free or fun), but after Calaveras I kept trying to convince myself it's more fun as a peasant, but instead grew more and more convinced that it's just not fun at all anymore. I just don't enjoy it. I can't find joy in it. At Visalia I helped think up several new gigs that I find funny and entertaining, but I have zero desire whatsoever to be a part of them.
I'd rather watch them. I long to be a spectator again, a mundane, a person who knows nothing of the life and is simply enchanted by it. I know I can't have that again, unless I go back east where it's all different, but the point is--I have no passion for it anymore. Any of it; even the drumming.. I love the people, but I almost hate the "game". It took me almost an hour to get dressed Saturday simply because I didn't want to don the garments and go out there, and when I finally did I just looked around the park, at all the opportunities for me to interact passing me by, and I couldn't muster up even an ounce of want or need to even say "Good morrow" to a passer by. Last season I couldn't stand to let an opportunity to interact pass me by.
It's very depressing. I'm calmer about it than I thought I would be, and I've always known I wouldn't spend the rest of my life doing faire, but I figured at least another 5 years. Still, it's just sad because it's happened so fast and I love the people so much, but I just don't feel it in me anymore. I don't feel a part of it. I feel disconnected, and all of that makes me deeply sad. But again, on the one hand I have plenty of things/feelings/events leading me to believe that I'm just growing out of it and have been over the past year or two, and on the other there are plenty of things to suggest that I'm suffering from depression and it's sucking the life right out of me.
And how lifeless I felt at Visalia is not how I want to feel anymore. I first started working faire at Valhalla 7 years ago, and that is where I choose to end it.