I've got to get this job...?
I am sitting here at my desk at work, and I am drowning.
Not literally, of course. I am drowning in boredom.
The craziness and busy-ness of the Gala (May 2) has died down, and now I am back to "business as usual" and I hate it.
There, I said it. I hate my job. Or, to be more accurate, I'm so over my job. It doesn't excite me. I don't wake up every morning eager to get to the office and do what I do. I'm completely listless while I'm actually at work, not particularly caring when or how I do what I need to do so long as it gets done at some point - which it always will, because I do have at least a modicum of self-respect and self-worth left to go along with my conscience and not getting things done would not only be a bad thing, it would make me look bad. I don't want to be here. I don't want to do this. I want to be making art - I want to be dancing, or performing, or creating something. I want to write. I want to read. I want to do anything but sit here at my desk staring at the computer screen counting down the minutes until I get to leave.
So what do I do? Do I quit? Just say that it isn't working, that my focus has shifted and I need to do what I need to do and move on? Do I ask if there's any way I can do something else with the company (something that seems highly unlikely, but also exactly the kind of surprising, crazy thing that they just might take a chance on)? Do I try to find another job? In NYC? Closer to home? Do I start just pounding the pavement and go on the audition circuit, praying that my big break is just around the corner? Do I try to choreograph and teach dance again?
I feel a change. I need a change. I don't want to drown.
* * *
I hate this goddamn show. A Chorus Line. Because it just makes me want to stop everything and only perform from here on out. Because I hate being - yet again - the best in the cast, feeling like I need to and should be performing on a higher level than stupid fucking goddamn community theatre. Because I've been there. I tried the audition in NYC thing, and nothing came of it. You spend hundreds, if not thousands, on classes and headshots and resumes and train tickets only to get typed out or only make it past the first round of cuts or just never hear back from anyone. It takes its toll - physically moreso than emotionally, but still. It's not so much your ego that gets bruised, but your confidence, your patience, and your drive. It's numbing. And exhausting.
It's not that I think I deserve anything, or expect anything to be handed to me on a silver platter. It's that I know my skill level, and I know that it's being wasted right now on a show that doesn't deserve it. It's certainly not being challenged, which would cause it to thrive. It's been stagnant since leaving college. Not getting better, not getting worse, just staying put right where it is. And that's the worst part.
* * *
I need to get out.
Change the scenery.
Do something, anything, to make something of myself.
I hate that I want to be in the Arts. I hate that this is what I love. I hate that this is what I'm good at. But I do. And I am.
So what do I do about it?