New Butterfly

In the words of Diana Vreeland, "I'm actually quite lazy, so naturally I expect everyone else to work as hard as I do."

What do you do when you get graced with the thing you constantly strive for in your waking life? For me that's nothingness. To do nothing; to have nothing to do. Space. Room to move. Room to breathe. All possibilities exist in nothingness and it's that arena I am in constant pursuit of, then covid-19 gave it to me. That's when I realized other people don't have the same aspirations as I do, imagine that.

I first learned about nothingness after spending my first 22 years in a race with myself and next new idea with no follow-through. I quit my first job that actually paid me a living wage with prospects of career longevity because I needed to be an actor. Very cliche if you ask me.

However, it was more than that. It was five years of floating, coasting and riding by the seat of my pants. Somehow amazing opportunities came along and I seemingly squandered them because of my belief that there will be another one around the corner. Because there always was.

I spent most of August 2018 in my bed, in Nashville, Tennessee. With a financially supportive husband, then fiance, [and now ex-husband], that encouraged I learn how to do "nothing".

Nothing being days without a schedule, without a plan. The art of opening up your day for possibilities that perhaps you yourself couldn't plan for yourself. My control-freak was astonished by the thought of that.

At first , I wasn't good at it. But then, I got good. After trying to busy myself with household things. And then having run out of things to do around the house and maxing out my credit card I ran out of things to do. So some days I would wake up, turn on the TV and start binge watching before even getting up for the day.

There was no day/There was no time. No need. No purpose to get up. And that was okay. Looking back I know now that I never sat with myself like that ever. My self-worth relied on my accomplishments, accolades, and persona. I let things happen to me like someone else was calling the shots in my own life.

So I sat in my nothingness. For a month. And came across Alan Watts on Prime and watched. The first episode discusses how you can't have something without nothing. And that hit home, obviously. Because I was nothing and wanted to be something so I was encouraged by the sentiment that I may be on the right path.

I continued to lay in my nothingness.

September came and with it brought a new air to my day-to-day. I wanted to get up. I wanted to go back to school. I enrolled in a bartending school. It cost $500 and I had about $800 in my bank account at the time because I just spent the last month unemployed and that was the last of my savings.

I never became a bartender and I can't tell you much of what I learned there but I know a little more than I did before. It inspired me though. It put me in a groove. I got my old job back at restaurant I used to host and run food at. I was working towards something even though I didn't know what yet.

Fast forward a month, I got a new job at a coffee shop. And bought the Artist's Way and was enrolled at the Nashville Acting Studio. Things were in check. I had a plan, I stopped drinking, stopped social media and set off on a path of clarity, groundedness and direction.

Soon after I finished the Artist's Way, I got married and applied to an incredible acting conservatory in New York, got accepted and have been here ever since.

That pause in the late summer of 2018 changed my trajectory. That stillness was a reset button. Whatever butterfly effect that was in play, that was carrying me along was halted, giving way for a new one to exist.

When my brother past away [in February 2020] and life kept going I was praying for a rest, a stop; a pause. I hoped to have time to deal with it in my own way. But that's not how it works. Life continues. With or without you. And everyday I got up and went on with my day even when I wanted to stay in bed.

I told myself, "in two months, that's when you'll have a break, that's when you'll breathe." Then coronavirus hit, hard, And I got my breath. I got my pause. Temporarily.

Life still continues to go on. On zoom no less. I hate zoom. The though of being self isolated and then chained to your computer screen, Why is everyone so enthusiastic about this?

It doesn't make any sense. How are people carrying on? Being sucked into a computer. Holding on for their sense of normalcy so tightly that they don't see how terrible it is. They don't let themselves feel that. Or is it just me?

That's not a life. Locked in your house, shackled to a screen. Striving for normalcy in an absolute abnormal time. Why not step back and recognize the pause the world is asking you to take?

Maybe that nothingness is necessary. Maybe this thing will reset social interactions and people will practice antiquated socializing skills. I suppose a covid-induced social media overdose is what the doctor ordered for a humanitarian reset? So I can't be too upset there.

But what does one do when you're not cut out for this life and other people are charging on? Are you a failure because you can't handle it? From now on is your evolutionary strength plagued with a placard that says "not good in a pandemic"? What if we're not supposed to be good at it?

Or what if being good at it means floating away from it, living with yourself stripped away of the accolades and social recognition, job, and interactions. Who are you when you're alone? Do you like, miss, or know that person? The decisions you've made? The way you used to exist? Before quarantine? Because if you don't or have never thought about it, you just won a lottery ticket to a new butterfly effect.