Reality Check

Blah. I'm feeling humbled and a little bit ashamed right now. I was talking to a friend today, telling her about all the wonderful things that I've been writing about here the last week, about how I'm feeling extremely confident and excited about moving forward towards my acting goals, and the e-book I've been reading, "You Must Act!", and about the specific goals I set for myself, ie filming myself performing different monologues, and auditioning for plays in the local community theaters, and generally being full of myself. And then she, being my friend and genuinely wanting to support me, asked, "So next week I can ask you how many auditions you've gone to?"

Crap. I immediately began to squirm emotionally. Every excuse that my brain could possibly come up with began racing through my mind, anything to not have to actually go out and DO it yet. But I told her "Yes." I allowed myself to be accountable to her, because I know that I really do need to get out and DO this, in spite of my fears.

I'm feeling humbled and ashamed, because I am still afraid of the reality. Because I was so far inside my head feeling confidence and determination and excitement that I forgot about the fear until she said that. And then the fear popped up unexpectedly and slapped me in the face again.

And I can't help wondering, how can I really want to do this when I'm so fearful of actually doing it? How can I be so afraid when my heart is screaming that this is something I really want to do?

Gotta remember to breathe, remember that fear is just part of the process, gotta DO in spite of the fear. I am so tired of being afraid.

I've picked out one monologue to work on, since I'm gonna need monologues to audition with. I've worked on it before a couple of years ago, but I never really got the chance to polish it because each semester my teacher wanted us to pick a brand new monologue to work on. This monologue is from "The Blue Window" by Craig Lucas, Libby is describing to an acquaintance how she and her new husband fell from their 7th story balcony when the railing broke. I never broke this down into beats or decided on a specific objective and actions. And I have several possibilities for a comic monologue.