Sometimes Things Collapse

Dear Readers and Friends and Foes,

I feel I want to explain my recent absence–both in writing and engaging.

Sometimes things collapse.

They collapsed for me in July.

The year started well enough: I was finally back to pursuing my dreams acting. I did some fantastic readings with my Shakespeare group and was fortunate enough to be cast in three shows in a row over the summer. I met some wonderful people and had great hope for the future of my career.

But sometimes things collapse.

The week after ‘Spitfire Sisters’ closed, my husband left me.

Because sometimes things collapse.

Circumstances meant that I had to stop auditioning and take on as many hours as I could at the pub. And that I must leave the country that I love and prepare for deportation back to the US after my visa ran out in November.

Sometimes things collapse.

When these things happened, I found that I was unable to speak to most people (still true)–that my way of coping would be to press forward zombie-like with work and push away most aspects of and people in my former life. Acting-related discussions were too painful, family was too painful, and rehashing what on earth had even happened to me was too painful.

Perhaps unusually, I mostly only found solace in strangers, in meeting new people. People who didn’t come with the baggage of a former me. Because, once again, it was time for a new me.

Because sometimes things collapse.

I suppose the good aspect about things collapsing is that you get to start over. Not that starting over isn’t incredibly horrible and daunting and awful to think about (especially in the face of crippling depression and anxiety). But I guess there’s always that chance that you’ll do things better, make things better when you take another stab at living.

Sometimes things just collapse.

My promise this time around is to always strive to be my most authentic self. I’m going to try my hardest to not worry about pleasing other people with my decisions. To not display versions of myself that I think will cause them to worry less about me or be more accepting of my behaviour. To quit apologising (this is quite a hard one). To be proud of whoever the hell it is that I am.

Sometimes things just fucking collapse.

New beginnings for me usually mean a return to some mythologised  younger version of myself that was living in Ali Glory Years. Curiously, the Glory Years shift on the timeline, depending on what tales my memory is telling me at the time. And yet, it feels easier and more hopeful for me to return to parts of myself that worked and were good and made me feel like me rather than forging some entirely new identity.

Besides: the only way I feel I have failed this round is in allowing my true self to be covered up and hidden away. I still love, am proud of, and have faith in the me that lies beneath the rubble. I just have to dig her out and dust her off.

She is strong, I’ve been told. And you know what? I agree.

Sometimes things collapse.

And that’s okay.

xW