Before the Lobotomy

Every year Playwrights feels the same, and different. As a first year, everything was new and exciting and the single floor of this building squeezed between Walgreens and Blue Man Group was the place where I was going to fulfill my dreams with these new teachers and friends I had been given, who were, as far as I was concerned, the only people in the world. A few other colors crept into that package and swirled with the blue cellophane wrapping that had been placed on my life. I spent too many hours in dark rooms with no windows, feeling like I knew nothing and everything and could change the world one day because of what I was doing right then. I started to forget how to exist outside of my neighborhood. I found the greatest friend I have ever had.

Second year, I returned to our two floors of this same building, where 70 new people were now me and I was now someone else, expected to have new friends and know more things, but I was still home. Salty and Elsa still sang in the mornings and pretended to be on the Titanic by pushing themselves down the hallway on bins full of blankets and mats. I smiled at faces I knew and loved and my heart broke each time I left, which was rare. I spent probably at least 75% of the hours in the day within the confines of our two floors, sleeping in places meant for walking, doing homework in social lobbies, forgetting real life except when it smacked me in the face. Emotions sank into my bones and took hold like cancer of the blood, both the strongest love and deepest despair I have ever felt in my life. I still recognized this place, but the corners and crevices were filling with memories I sometimes wanted to escape.

This year, Playwrights is different. Familiar faces are absent and in their places walk strangers who I can't get to know by invading their African dance class, because there is no African dance class. I have, thank God, returned to some of my freshman teachers, making things feel familiar in a place that sometimes feels foreign. I still cannot leave, I still don't want to leave, but sometimes I realize I am a stranger, too. I am not the girl who walked in a little over two years ago with no idea what was in store for her.

I was this:

And now I am this:

These two years have flown by and yet somehow seem longer than all of high school and junior high combined. Pepper still dances, oranges are still terrifying, the cycle continues.

I'm directing now. I suppose that might make me a Director. I prefer the Playwrights motto, gesamptkunsttheatermensch, whole theatre artist. This semester I am: lighting designing two shows, set designing one show, sound designing one show, directing a one act play, and assistant directing three new one act musicals that haven't been written yet. I'm also working on a monologue from a Holly Hughes performance art piece, and already having a blast. I'm seeing theatre, for free, as much as possible. I'm obsessing over Kevin Adams (probably seeing American Idiot for a fourth time this Sunday; it's embarrassing). Trying to figure out what yellow light means. Wondering why my leg started tremoring when I was typing my monologue this morning. Planning to meet someone really sexy soon. Hoping to procure funds for everything I want to do. I'm walking all over the island. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" likes to play on my iPod when I happen to be walking home past midnight in the rain. I'm reading, a lot. I'm teaching Sunday school to preschoolers. I'm working hard as ever, but actually having fun.

A walk across the Brooklyn Bridge is due soon.