Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

Several weeks ago for Father's Day my siblings and I spent the day at the home of our Goertzen Grandparents. While helping my grandmother clean up the dinner dishes she told me the story of  her and my grandfather- their entire courtship was done through letters while he was over seas with the Air Force. They never actually dated. In fact, they were strictly friends- it wasnt until the end of his service out of the country that they even began discussing feelings. Their letters were never love-letters, but the day after arriving home Leonard Goertzen proposed to Nadine Buck and the rest, as they say, is history.

I feel like the written word is dying. And by written word I mean Hand-Written-Words. Everything is digitized and sent over wires and satellites and when it does end up on paper it is more often than not printed in ink by some machine.

While sorting through some papers yesterday I discovered a whole parcel of letters from the year or so after I'd graduated from high school. When my family moved back to Utah that year there were a few people who I exchanged postage with, friends who I didn't want to lose contact with. This was before Facebook took off, and though we were all on Myspace it was fun to write letters by hand and send them in the mail. There were gossipy pieces of news from my friends still at the High School. There were letters from boot-camp where a friend/flame was struggling with the rigidity of Army Life. 

And then there were the letters that my family sent to me once I'd moved to Tallahassee. Doodles and drawings and misspelled notes from my youngest siblings who were growing up in my absence. Encouraging notes and cards from my mother. A letter from my Goertzen Grandmother sending love and courage and pride from home. Letters from a very dear friend serving a mission in a foreign land. 

It was emotional, hilarious, touching to read through these hand-penned memories. I tucked them away in a scrapbook, with plans to lay them out flat and preserve them better very soon.

And then I had an Idea.

Many of my friends will shortly, if they aren't already, be living in a completely different state from me. By the end of the summer, my dearest people will be spread out around the country in various places- and while the advent of Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat have made it easier than ever to keep in touch, I want to begin writing letters. Maybe not lengthy detailed tomes, but I'd like to be able to exchange cards and notes and little friendly tokens via good old-fashioned snail-mail. 

SO- here's my plea. If you live somewhere outside of the state of Utah, and would like to be part of something fun and simple and sweet, let me know. We're likely Facebook friends, go ahead and shoot me a message with your address, and I will be delighted to include you. Besides, the more people I write to, the more people I'm likely to receive mail from in return (though it is not expected or required). Lets have some fun and remember our penmanship lessons from grade-school and possibly make some memories in the process.

:-)

wanderlust: take me away

 i want to sit in the middle of a field while it rains and watch the clouds.

 i want to sleep all day and only get up to make irish coffee and turn on a film to fall back asleep to.

 i want to sing for an hour or more in an empty theatre.

 i want to hold your hand while we stroll down city streets neither of us know.

 i want to drive aimlessly and only stop when i'm too tired to drive. then stay the night at some cheapish hotel in whatever random city i've ended up in.

 i want a take-out feast of whatever brilliant hole-in-the-wall take-out joints are within 5 miles. a random assortment of appetizers and dishes to share and discover and enjoy.

 i want to float on an tube in the middle of a lake, letting the waves carry me out as far as they like.

 i want to ride on a speedboat, feeling the spray on my face and the wind in my hair.

 i want to pick berries and eat them off the vine. bite into a tomato like an apple.

 i want a challenge to sink my teeth and my nails and my soul into.

 i want to run away for a week and not tell anyone where i've gone. disconnect and just explore new places.

 i want to wake up excited about the job i'm headed to do each day.

 i want to breathe easy for more than one day in a row.

Un-Equipped

I do not feel I was built to process being an adult.
Somehow over the last two years or so my anxiety has grown exponentially, and the normal every-day stressors of adult life feel massively overwhelming more often than not.

I mean. I cried at work today. Cried. Not because any one specific thing happened. But because I was tired from getting up early enough to call for a tow truck for my misbehaving vehicle, which then had to be postponed, and the thought of sitting in a desk chair for 6 hours making phone calls all day was just too much. I was telling my boyfriend how tired I was, and how much I'm hating living by myself and how I feel like the distance between me and my friends has been a result of how easy it's become for me to turn into a hermit because I live alone and have no money... and our conversation got really introspective and made me start thinking about why I'm struggling so much.... and that's when my adorable co-worker came by my desk to say hello and ask how my day was and the emotional roller-coaster that had been climbing the hill all morning took a complete 90* drop and I was suddenly crying quietly at my desk.

I hadn't even been on the clock for 15 minutes. I had to go sit outside on the balcony off the break-room to pull myself together. And this is not a new occurrence... though it was the first time it's been that bad at work.

Lately, as a reaction to the number of stressors in my life, I've been feeling exhausted, lethargic, weepy. My back has started tensing up in new places, so it now is basically a rock of knots and kinks. There is a lingering headache that floats behind my right eye, that gets worse when I start to think of my bank accounts, or my car, or my job (that I'm slowly growing to resent).  There's a sort of perpetual ache all over, one that seems to stem from right behind my sternum.

I've been inhaling my Lavender oil like it's going out of style. I've tried to up my water intake and cut back on caffeine. I am trying to list positive things every day so that I remember the good things in my life. I logged off of Facebook (three days FB sober now), because I know it is often a negative trigger for my emotions. I'm starting to feel like maybe I could really benefit from a low-dose anti-anxiety medicine, because even when I'm doing all the things I can think of to keep myself from having a breakdown, I still end up hitting some level of panic and melting down.

Maybe I'm lame for feeling like i'm not equipped. But even when I do fight through the panic and do the responsible adult-things that are needed for each situation, I still end up with tightness in my chest and a feeling of dread and I'm wishing I could go back to being a kid without any decisions more stressful than who to invite to my sleepovers.

Learning

I'm learning...

• ... that love is so much different than I thought it was. There was a time when I was sure I knew what love meant and how it felt and where it came from. But life has a way of breaking down your pre-conceptions and slapping you in the face with something that may shake you to your core. I'm trying to find a way to pick up the pieces of what I thought I knew, and making them fit in to what I'm coming to know. Love is confusing. Love is suprising. Love is terrifying. Love is fluid. Love is both difficult and easy. Love is a process. Love is fun and exciting and blissful. I'm learning to let it take its course in it's own way, because it's slow and thoughtful and full of it's own life, and can't be forced. 
• ... that budgeting is not my strong-suit. This isn't new knowledge, but it's become painfully obvious in the last few months. Even with my new job and it's secure, steady, reliable paycheck, I haven't been able to keep up with my bills and expenses the way I should be. I'm learning how to cut back. WAY back. I'm trying to learn how to organize my spending in a way that will help me come out on top at the end of the month, instead of scrambling to make ends meet before another month's expenses crop up. I'm trying to humble myself enough to consider making some drastic changes in my lifestyle and living situation. I've learned that while money may not buy happiness, it does buy security. And it's hard to be happy when you can't come close to feeling secure.
• ... that the life I've chosen is terrifying. It is rewarding, it is thrilling, it is full of joy and energy. But the life of an actor is also unreliable, and it is frustrating, and it is maddening. I am feeling lost, as of late; trying to decide if the choices I've made for my theatre career have been the right ones. I am watching several of my closest friends pick up their roots and move in a direction that will further their careers in one way or another. Part of the reason I'm still here has to do with the financial situations I find myself in, but I also think part of it is my fear and my inability to decide what direction my life as an actor should go. I'm learning that my motivation can't be fueled by anyone but myself, and I'm working on finding a way to kickstart that once more. 
• ... that I am not doing well living alone. I am learning that I am unmotivated when I come home to an empty apartment. Being on my own was an adventure and an experiment, and I feel like it's staring to hurt me. I walk through the door after work and I have no desire to clean or cook or exercise or (ironically) be social. When I had the motivation to come home to my puppy it felt right, it felt like home. But because my dog seems to so fiercely dislike this apartment, I've been here completely alone, and it is suffocating-ly lonely sometimes. But the solitude seems to suck me in, and I get stuck on my couch, not socializing, not inviting people over because the house is a mess, and falling into some weird lonely head-space that has an easy remedy- if I just made the effort to fix it. As much as I dread the idea of moving, I'm starting to wonder if it just might be necessary. 
• ... that maybe it's okay to not have things figured out just yet. I look around and I see people who are barely old enough to buy alcohol getting engaged and married, but I also see people who have been married and divorced before the age of 30. I see my peers who seem to be thriving and living it up on the streets of NYC and Boston and Chicago, but I also see my friends who are working mundane day jobs and living in mediocre apartments, and living on Ramen-noodles and Mac & Cheese. I see that life is too unpredictable to think that things have to be a certain way by a certain age. I ache to feel like I know what I'm doing and where I'm headed, but I'm also learning I'm not the only person who feels that way. I have hope things will all work out. I will find a path to walk on, I will not be on it alone, and it will have some sort of solid ground to stand upon- however meager it may be.

Reminders from the Universe

I have been strapped for cash. Just.... the tightest, penny pinching-est I've ever been. So broke that I decided to try donating plasma. It was a miserable mistake. Terrible bruising, I vomited at the clinic, no fun.

At that point I decided to put out a call for extra work- housecleaning, pet walking, odd jobs- I asked my friends via FaceBook if they'd be willing to let me do some work for them in exchange for some cash. 

In return I was gifted a total of $230 dollars.

GIFTED

My incredible friends and family dipped into their wallets and bank accounts and found it in their hearts to help me get through

....so i cried....

....and it just clicked.....

When ever I start feeling like I'm losing ground, like I'm spinning out of control, like I'm making a mess of myself and my life- the Universe steps in, puts it's hand out and gives me a reminder of just how lucky I am.

REMINDERS

Generous and Selfless gifts from friends and family.

Finding out that the Terrific Trio (Mikell, Me and Sara) will all be in Orlando at the same time.

Daily expressions of affection and care from Chris

Randall securing me a comp ticket for his (brilliant) show.

John giving me $20 as a gift in order to buy a SLC Comic-Con ticket.

Getting to work on an incredible show with incredible people and loving every second.

Seeing some of my favorite humans at a callback.

So grateful. So lucky.