Month Six

My official six-month-aversary came and went on March 4, but as I'm sure you're aware by now my track record for writing these things on time is dismal at best.

Month six has been a doozie, and I wish that I'd been better able to blog about it as it was happening. There are two reasons for the difficulty in this, the first being that I was so busy blogging was just about the last thing on my mind, right above doing complicated math and putting anything in its rightful place in my flat ever. The second reason was that so much of this month's doozie factor is wrapped up in intangibles, and god knows I opine so much on this blog lately about my feelings it's like a wax-on, wax-off commercial. Only mostly, just waxing on.

I spent most of month six throwing myself into The Vagina Monologues, whether it was rehearsals, sitting in the atrium all day selling vagina cakes or the actual performance. By the time show night rolled around on February 27 I felt like I was giving birth to a freakishly overdue baby, because it just felt like we'd been promoting and rehearsing for ages. It goes without saying that it was all worth it, as it always is, and the show solidified for me something I've sort of known for a year or two now, which is that no matter where I am for at least the foreseeable future, I will seek out a V-Day campaign and get involved with this show every year. And I look so forward to that.

The show also made me remember just how much I love to act, probably because the monologues I did took me out of my usual zone. They were a bit more dramatic, and I liked it. I relished the chance to hone my New York accent and bring the monologues to life in new ways, really drive home the poignancy of certain aspects of the pieces. And now, my friend Grainne who I met through the show has asked me to act in a play she's directing for her course. I can't wait.

All this is not leading up to my shocking revelation that I've decided to become an actress. I still want to write, I still love music, I still want to launch my own magazine some day. None of these things have changed. But I think what I am realizing is that as naive and idyllic as it may sound, I am a firm believer that you can have it all. Why shouldn't you be able to? Why shouldn't I be able to write for a living, but also act and sing a bit on the side? Be a steel mill worker by day, exotic dancer by night? I can have it all.

Righteously bad series of film puns? Yes, but the idea behind it, I really believe in. And it's refreshing to be in that place again. I think as teenagers we are forced to choose specifics far too much and too young. I remember that the very class scheduling process in high school necessitated that I choose between newspaper, band, theater and chorus -- four things I'd been involved with in middle school, but now, at 14, had to determine which I would do for the next four years and (as a guidance counselor breathes down your neck) the REST OF MY NATURAL LIFE. It's nice to know that, like most everything else in high school, those were all a bunch of lies.

Month six also brought celebrating, of course, as we drank to the close of The Vagina Monologues and I helped friends celebrate birthdays and even (began) the celebration of my own this past weekend. And, as with every month before it, it's brought with it plenty of internal changes -- most of which center around my constantly, exponentially growing love for this city and this country and these people, and best of all, my exponentially growing love, respect, pride and excitement about the person I am (and am still becoming) because of it.


cheers,
HRH e. cawein