Detriment
I went to a rehearsal last night for a drama I’m in at the Equip women conference this weekend (people refer to these things as a ‘drama’ but that gives it more weight than I feel it has…it’s just a skit to me, a performed blip to get you thinking). There are four of us in the drama, all showing women in various stages of waiting, or talking about what they are waiting for.
Rehearsal was after a long day at work, in a place I’d never been before in the western suburbs. I had never met the other actors, and we only got the script last weekend because of various problems with volunteers having to pull out (one of whom was the writer/director, so the whole thing had to be rewritten by one of the actors). Actually I was a ring-in because an actor had pulled out, and we even had another actor pull out this week, so the girl replacing her was even newer than me. So the whole thing has only come together by the grace of God, really!
I was already feeling low because of tiredness and being in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. Then I realised that they are all active actors/drama people. And that really threw me for a loop. One is a working actor, one is a drama teacher and one has just graduated from drama school. And then there’s me, who hasn’t properly acted for at least 10 years.
I don’t know why this slammed me so much. I sat there, watching the girls do their monologues and thinking “they’ve actually put effort into this, they actually know what they’re doing…they’re going to regret asking me to do this…”, and dreaded my turn to perform. It was like being at a cold audition, suddenly jumping up in front of strangers and doing a monologue at them. I apologised my way through the rehearsal, and rushed my lines, and was touchy when given direction…I could see myself behaving this way, saw that it really wasn’t helping anything and couldn’t understand it. I told myself to calm down, and tried to be gracious and thank the scriptwriter and take on suggestions and slow down.
It came together well, and everyone was positive and reassuring. But all the way home I just felt stupid and sad and fraudulent. And the little positive voice, although barely audible amongst the waves of negativity, kept saying “you’re fine! Don’t worry! It’s just a little skit, and your bit’s only two minutes long! It’s okay! God will use you!”
So I tried to reflect on why I had felt so bad. Two main things, aside from the tiredness.
1. My part is that of a pregnant woman, who can’t wait for her baby to arrive because “you have no idea how long I’ve waited for this”. I was bemused that I was cast in this role when the script went around, and was basically told, well, we’re all single, childless women, so someone has to do it, you’ll be fine.
I realised last night I didn’t really want to get into the mindset I needed to do a convincing job (ie, not just a cariacature); that it felt like if I didn’t try to do it well I could end up being insulting to the countless women who will be at Equip and will be feeling sad and anxious about issues of childlessness; and that even though mostly I am okay about not being a mum, thinking too much about waiting for a child makes me feel bone-wearyingly sad.
2. I have changed so much since theatre was my life; there are people I know now who never even knew that ‘other’ me. Now, I don’t mind the changes that have taken me away from wanting a life in the theatre, and I love how God has shaped me and grown me since my uni years.
But the thing that upset me was the change in my demeanour, in my outlook since being struck with depression. I feel like the black dog has eaten parts of me, or like the depression is an acid that has burned giant holes in my fabric…if I’d had the energy last night I would have tried to draw it, because it’s hard to explain.
I used to be so excited about performing, about the medium of theatre. I could see exactly what to do to communicate a thought or emotion, and how to do it (though I’ve always been a better director than actor). I had energy. I had projection. I had passion. I loved being part of an ensemble and making plays. And now, even though depression-wise I’m nowhere near as bad as I’ve been in the past, it’s like that me has dissolved. It’s like I’m missing parts of my personality. I almost resented the other girls for being in touch with that, when I couldn’t access it anymore.
It’s hard to explain. But I think maybe the sad feeling was grieving those things. They aren’t huge, insurmountable issues to deal with. But they definitely tripped me up.
Hearing talks on heaven at Equip this weekend will be good for me!
Battle
I am becoming a road warrior.
I always thought that was a stupid term, but since I started working in Rydalmere, which involves a 50-60 minute drive each way in heavy traffic, I am beginning to understand. You really do need to don armour and develop a tough mindset to get out amongst that every day!
Today the traffic war started almost as soon as I’d left the house. Turning onto a roundabout a block away from my house, and I believe I had right of way, a man in a Mercedes sped up right behind me. I was doing 50 down this residential street (as is the law) to the intersection only about 100 metres away and he overtook me, angrily zooming down the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic just so he could be one spot ahead of me.
Madness!
In the last few weeks I’ve seen a lot of that. People pushing in so they can be first. People screaming at other people because they are obeying the law. People deliberately harassing other drivers on the road. It’s so easy to take the bait and get angry in response, to gesture or swear or yell or speed up just so that other person doesn’t win. But win what?!
Today I resolved that instead of getting angry in traffic, every time I felt frustrated I would try to pray instead. I know it sounds sanctimonious, but I just thought, why is that not my first response? I should pray that God would make me gracious, and that he would calm everyone around me down.
So that’s my resolution. Do you pray for people around you when you’re out and about? I realise that for all that my church talks about being real with the world and the Bible talks about loving our neighbours, I rarely step out of my little bubble and remind myself that every single person I see is loved by God, whether they acknowledge it or not. And I should try to see them the same way, as precious to him, and not just as objects that are costing me an extra 60 seconds on the road.
a picture is worth several words at least
What’s been happening?
Here I am, graduating from Moore Theological College, with a Diploma of Bible and Youth Ministry.
Kim was the fourth year ‘big sister’ who organised my little prayer quartet at college. I knew her from AFES days, and now that she’s graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity, she’s gone back to AFES to work at UNSW, sharing the gospel with students. She is a wonderful woman and I was blessed to share my life and prayer with her and the other girls in our group, Jacquie and Grace.
Doug was a student minister at Wild Street and graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity too. He’s one of those brilliantly smart dudes, but who also has an interesting sense of humour and a tireless servant heart. I was inspired by the way he and his wife, Jayme, taught the senior youth group kids last year.
My mum and my godmother, Freda. These women are two of the brightest Christian lights in my life, who have always prayed for me and loved me and longed for me to have an ever deeper relationship with Jesus. I love them.
The Hive Mind! Guan is still at college for this year, and Karen did the Diploma of Bible and Ministry a few years ago. They are my creative cheersquad, ever supportive and inspiring.
Here I am, with pink hair and cat ears, at Supanova Melbourne.
This look got a very positive reaction from my Facebook friends! Karen and I were in Melbourne at Supanova, a pop culture convention showcasing just about every nerdy thing anyone could be interested in – comics, anime, cult TV shows, sci-fi/fantasy/comic book movies, sci-fi/fantasy/horror fiction writing, costumes…oh it was great. Karen has written about our weekend in fine detail here, but as a brief summary, we gave out about 1200 promotional postcards directing people to the Kinds of Blue website, and we sold (or gave to Key People We Like) 28 of the 30 books we had taken with us. We were blown away by the sales – we had really not expected to sell that many. In fact, the people on the table next to us selling a horror novel were quite envious as they hadn’t sold many at all. I was really pleased by the reaction of most people, that it was a valuable book to be in existence, and that it was really well produced.
I’m really looking forward to Supanova Sydney in June, when we’ll do it all again!
Here I am, with pink hair and no cat ears, at WildKids.
Straight after getting back from the huge Supanova weekend, I went into helping out with the WildKids holiday program, which this year had the theme ‘Wild about science’. We explored God’s world through science, and explored what he had to say from the Bible about living in his world. Each day we would do experiments, which then had a link into illustrating our situation with God. The kids really loved it. We had over 75 kids each day, and an impressive team of volunteers from Wild Street who took the week off work (or part of the week) to come and help out. I’m praying that many of the kids will have understood the gospel message, and that, through God’s grace, the seeds we have sown will one day bear fruit!
The kids were really taken with this one. When we did revision each day, and asked them what we had done, most kids got the key point, “we messed up the world”, but there was usually at least one who yelled, “we put SLIME on it!!!!”
It’s been a busy time, but one that has been full of blessings!