Last year...

Kryssi Martin

January 4, 2017 at 10:44am ·

According to my Facebook Memory Nag, I was sick New Year's 2016 and 2017. I'm fine this year, maybe I'm waiting for school to start to get sick. Anyway, my post last year was funny: 

Five Days Down. I can't focus long enough to write anything, or plan for classes. I can barely stay conscious. However, I have:
--NOT welcomed the New Year with an alcoholic beverage.
--NOT yoga-d. Only a brief attempt that ended in a coughing fit and a need for new knickers.
---NO coffee. Caffeine aggravates my headache.
---One Constant Headache. Seriously? For five days.
---One Pug Thing snuggling with me constantly. He is going to be very upset when I'm well.
---One anxiety attack. Not sure what that was about, but I thought I'd mention it.
---Four loads of laundry. Sick or not, if you're this coughy/ sneezy, aged over 50 and had two children you need laundry. Moms get me.
---"It's fun being weird, it fun being weird, it's fun being weird you should try it some time." After 4 days I had to turn off TBS, but that damned song endures.
---Somehow I managed to see every episode of DETOUR, and PEOPLE OF EARTH more than once. I heard WRECKED, but I'm not sure I saw it, I was unconscious during that binge, however I think it's a show about some grown ass people that are behaving worse than the kids in "Lord of the Flies".
---ONE coughing fit that ripped me from my sleep. It may have been triggered by choking on the Ricola I was nursing to keep the cough from waking me up....aaaaaanddd....fresh knickers.
---ONE Fat, 13 year old cat who has decided she needs to purr on my face, shoving more cat fur up my nose, sending fur flying around the room and generally impeding my ability to breathe.
----Five Days to regret not wearing a full HAZMAT suit while purging the house last week, as I'm sure the two feet of animal fur on the ceiling fan had something to do with this.
---Five Days to shuffle through the house in a polluted haze, laboring under the delusion that I'll rearrange the furniture in the living room and that'll solve everything.
---Which leads to five days of hating the furniture, angry that I'm not well enough to start putting the floor in the spare room, rich enough to just hire some one to blow up the spare room and start over again or for that matter, blow up all the furniture in the living room ...AHHH BUT I did make ONE trip to IKEA to look at beds!

I just realized I've been up since 8. It's 10. Go Me.Must be time to go back to bed

The Thing and The Pudding

I received Amy Poehler's book Yes Please for Christmas this year, and tore through it, much as I did Bossypants a few years ago.

I must have read Amy's book at the exact right time, because I can't stop my head yelling at me 'TEACHING THE THING IS NOT DOING THE THING, DO THE THING!"

I have, for a year and a half now not done The Thing.

I ventured out and found others who were willing to let me do The Other Thing, but not The Thing, and that was great and a fabulous distraction, and led me to believe that, maybe I could  return to  The Other Thing. The problem is, nobody wants me to do The Other Thing anymore, and nobody wants me to do The Thing, either, but they are happy to let me teach The Things anywhere I'd like, any age group I'd like.

But the issue is that I Love The Thing. And it only works if I can do it with people who are old enough and hungry enough to grow and stretch and rejoice and learn from the experience. As kind and magnificent as the many people who have allowed me to do  Sort Of The Thing are, the age group is wrong and not fulfilling for me. Which, they tell me, is not the point, it's not about ME, which is why you teach, dumbass, you TEACH THE THING because it is not about YOU.

UGH.

I don't want to do The Thing for Pudding, I don't even want the pudding! I stand by Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration: "I don't act for trophies." I AGREE. I don't care, dude, about pudding. I just want To Do The Thing. I miss The Thing.

UGH

Because teaching the thing, is NOT doing The Thing. My heart knows the difference.

Goals and Dreams

   This past year, Jim and I focused on the first goal I have had in a very long time: fix our credit so we can get a new car.
    It was practical, achievable and we did it together. Every decision ended with "Is this going to help or interfere with our goal." Jim kept saying "We have to stay focused, we can't lose sight." It sounds like we were climbing the Andes, I know, but it was a big deal to us. We knew we had a small window-to do this before the girls' graduate and their loans come due, before anything else can interfere.
    And two days before Christmas, we bought a new a car. Our first new car in ten years. A car that had been researched, planned, saved for. A car for which I taught and directed--and will continue to teach and direct---kindergartners. It is ongoing, because the goal of a new car did not end with Vernon  Fransisco (his full Christian name) in my driveway, that's where it starts. I still have to save and adjust and pay off debt and direct and teach outside of my main teaching gig to continue to keep this car.  And I love it. I love knowing I had to make a plan, I had to think ahead and I have to continue. It was a great distraction from losing my theatre.
    So...now what? While maintaining the car payments is ongoing, I have achieved the goal of the car.  A brand new, insured and warranteed to blue perfect heaven Subie sits in my garage. I love it, I find excuses to drive it, and I busy myself in the mornings going through old debt and finishing off what we started, so the new year can begin not fully debt free, but at least with everything current. Is that a dream? To have no outstanding debt or collectors? To have everything current?   Sure. Why not.

   I do have a dream, I actually have two. I suppose they are dreams, as opposed to goals, because they are unachievable.

   The first one is my NYC dream. The one where I live in a townhouse in Greenwich and am the house manager for the Cherry Lane Theatre. I spend my days writing whatever I want, sometimes it's a play, sometimes it's blogging. I have a publisher who is kind and once a year  I publish a small tome of my random , stupid thoughts, and I sell enough to maintain my townhouse. My plays are occasionally workshopped in NYC and on three occasions have been produced at The Cherry Lane, under a psuedonym, so I can just be the house manager when I'm there (may I remind you  that this is  A DREAM). I live close enough to walk to work. I have no illusions about acting or directing, I just keep the house in order. Fix the toilets. Talk to patrons,  thank the teachers who bring their students to the shows. Sometimes, if there is a need, I run a prop check for the SM because I am  always friends with the SM. While s/he takes care of the show and everyone on it, I make sure s/he has coffee or tea, tell them the hair looks great tonight and keep extra blacks in the office for the days s/he's juggling gigs. I also see to it that, during rehearsals, everything  is open and accessible for the directors. I make coffee and tea every rehearsal day, clean the mugs and bring fresh fruit. In other houses it's the SM who does this, but at Cherry Lane it's me, the house manager, and that's part of the Cherry Lane's charm. Everyone loves me because I don't want anything from them. My job is to support and feed and keep warm--or cool off, NY summers can be brutal---the cast and crews of all shows. It's a pleasure and a joy, as many newer playwrights are trying out their shows on our stage, and some older playwrights are venturing into new territory, and this is their church, and it's imperative that they feel comfortable. Every day I arrive three hours before curtain. I do yoga on the stage first, to balance all the energies. I play soothing music to warm the space up, before I check backstage and clean up anything overlooked by the crew. I check bulbs in the mirrors, wipe down the makeup counters--even though I know the makeup crew cleaned up beautifully --make sure the Glade Plug in is full and doesn't need replacing. Lavender is the current favorite scent. Then I walk the house, checking for programs, left over garbage. Even though my crew is attentive, people will still sneak in food and drink. It's hard to hold the line when so many Broadway houses are allowing food and drink--they even have cupholders on their seats. UGH. What a horrible nightmare. I check the problem seat, get a wrench and make sure it's secure. Then I run a dust rag over the sound and light boards, before heading to the lobby. Check inventory: red wine, white wine, beer. It's October, so I check the Baileys and coffee, those are popular as it gets colder. Then it's the bathrooms, the night crew is fantastic about bleaching and cleaning, but I  walk through and run a Clorox wipe over the sinks and check the Glade Plug in. Flush all the toilets---I'm superstitious,  my first visit to the Cherry Lane  was with students when I was teaching 100 years ago, the toilets in the women's restroom had malfunctioned and they had to close the restrooms. When I took over, I added two more toilets to each restroom and took down the "Men" and "Women" signs. Now they just say  "JOHN" and "LOU", cause I think that's funny. Then it's the lobby, run the vacuum, check the programs and sign to make sure they are for the proper show. Then to my office, where I manage this evening's tickets. We are old school, with so many out of town visitors and groups, we print and mail most tickets. But it requires a close eye, and I make sure I've printed tickets to any open seats we still have and close the ticket purchase window online for that evening's show. Our Box Office Manager is also a web designer, she is on top of it, but lives in the city so I manage anything necessary on cite.  By now,  the SM has arrived, and the actors are beginning to arrive, but everything is open and cleaned and warm (or cool), well lit and the coffee and tea is made. I sit in my office with a glass of red wine--only one before the show---and look over the house numbers for the weekend, leave a message with the radiator repair man--it's very quaint that it bangs when it comes on, but tonight it was particularly loud and sounded like something shook loose. I run a wood cleaner over the ticket booth and check the sidewalk out front for garbage, or snow, or teenagers. I look up at the awning "THE CHERRY LANE THEATRE" and close my eyes, saying a prayer of thanks.

That's one dream.

The other one is the complete opposite. In that one, Jim and I have a very nice but quaint "log" cabin on fifty acres near Steamboat. We have a horse, who is my horse, four llamas and two alpacas and a donkey. The dogs roam freely and safely, as we are far from any roads, and the cats come and go as they please.  Every morning, I walk out with the dogs to the barn where the llamas and alpacas and George the Donkey are warmly snuggled in for the night. I brush everybody while they have their breakfast, as the  dogs run madly outside the barn waiting for the others to emerge so they can chase them. The llamas pay no heed, they only notice when the dogs nip at their legs at night when they are being herded back to the barn. During the day it's just a game, and the alpacas have a particular snark to them, one time I saw them head butt the German Shepard. I'm not sure he knew an alpaca from a llama until that moment, now he gives them a wide berth. Once everyone is brushed and fed, I hop on my horse and we all ride out. The land behind us is protected national forest, so they can roam all they'd like, and some evenings it can be stressful to find the  buggers, but they are not dumb and they know where their food is. Unless a storm is coming, I don't worry about it too much.  Once a year we shave the llamas and alpacas and give the fur to our friend who spins and weaves and twirls it into yarn, and then I make alpaca mittens and scarves that I sell in Steamboat. When I'm not riding my horse, or knitting, I write. I write constantly, and inconsistently, and my plays are produced and my stories are published and widely read, and I have anxiety attacks every time there is a snow storm, because weather plus mountains equals anxiety. This is a dream, and there should be no anxiety, and I just realized there is no anxiety at all in the NYC dream. Hmmm.

Those are my lame dreams. Notice none of them are being on stage. When I was young, ya, I wanted nothing more than to be seen. But now, I'm older and I'm appalled at the utter lack of roles for women in general, and women over 40, specifically. In both dreams, I am solving that by writing stories that can be read and adapted, and plays with fabulous, strong female characters. I am single handedly solving the problem. Because it's a DREAM. That's the dream.
   

I Believe I Miss ...2017

....I am grateful I have my wits and I can remember and miss these people and what they did for me.
    Spoiler Alert: They are not dead.

     The bartender at MBB who is from Hell's Kitchen, who, despite a difference of opinion about sexist behavior and ...everything else, physically threw out a patron who grabbed my butt. I miss knowing someone, somehow, had my back.
         Mrs. West. my elementary music teacher at Patterson. She was the first teacher I truly and deeply loved. I  bought her lipstick for Christmas, because she was a grown ass woman and grown ass women liked lipstick as far as my first grade brain understood. She thanked me and looked kindly at me with those chocolate brown eyes, and told me she loved it. She said "You can't even tell I wear lipstick because it's all worn off by the end of the day," and to demonstrate she rubbed her lips together, smiling. Her lips were light brown and her teeth were so white and her eyes were so kind and she was my favorite, favorite, favorite teacher for years. I will never forget her kindness. Her eyes were what I remember most. She looked at me, not around me or over me. She smiled at me. She connected to me. I credit her with instilling my love of music, as I associate it with being connected.
         Mr. Weisheit, my third grade teacher who was an honest to God, full on Hippie. Long hair, beard, sandals. When he taught us his name, he broke it down: We Is He It. I will never forget how cool I thought that was, or how inclusive I felt in his class. My friend Debbie and I were always putting together "shows", and he would allow us, on occasion, to perform for our class. The one I remember most clearly was when I was  Dick Van Dyke, and Debbie was the music box. "I'm only a doll on a music box that's wound by a key..." I remember that line. Debbie was pretty and I was the clown. Story of my life. Thank you, Mr. Weisheit for allowing me to figure that out during class time. That would never happen now, everybody's wound up about content, no time to let kids be kids.
           Diana Solis, who was constantly and relentlessly kind in every possible way, making my skin crawl and exposing my insecurities for all to see.  Diana was the first public hit to my fortress, which features metal bars, Kevlar window coverings, spikes and a moat containing  freaking sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads. She also left LHS for greener pastures.
          Kline. My first day at LHS I had no guidance, no mentor, and the door to 146 was locked. As I wandered the halls hopeful that someone would give me direction, Kline flipped me off  like "Hudson, look into my eye", and we became best friends.He called me Satan, I threw up every time I saw him and he would send messages to me via students that involved hell fire, witch curses and the general stench that accompanies me as far as he was concerned. He retired. Nobody sniffs the air as I pass any more,accusing me of polluting the halls with my malodor.
          Judy Vlasin, who was assigned as my mentor in lang arts when it became clear that the person in theatre who was supposed to be my "mentor" was capable of only the name in quotes, not the job itself. Everything --and I mean, everything --I know about teaching in general and teaching English specifically I learned from Judy. She retired and abandoned us.
          Only Eric Pung and Stephanie Ortiz get me 100% of the time. Steph and I can quote the entire movie Real Genius from any starting point, and Eric and I have too many sharing points. Two years ago whilst building the "food girls", I came up with a cape for the beer girl that involved a curtain rod. I laughed until I peed, and nobody got me, until Eric was shown. He burst into laughter and said "I saw it in the window and I couldn't resist", because CAROL BURNETT IS QUEEN and he and I know this. That's why he choreographed for ten years, and why Steph was my tech director and light designer. Because we are the only three who will laugh until we pee at a curtain rod. I miss having them in the building, knowing that either one could pop in, or send a message via a kid...Eric and Steph Not There has been a true blue drag.

           I was hoping to make it to 10, but if I'm honest, and not including the deceased, these are the ones I Believe I Miss.

Thanksgiving 2017

   Here's how Empty Nest Syndrome went for us:
   G left for college, two years later H graduated from high school after surviving multiple Vasovagal episodes that determined that she would not be leaving for college after graduation.
   That was fine, she stayed home and attended Red Rocks Community College, and then chose to enroll in Massage Therapy school. She and her boyfriend got an apartment in January.
    By April it was clear the cost of living, both financial and emotional, was taking its toll on them, and she moved back home in August.
    We had an Empty Nest for about ten minutes.
     At the end of September, H asked if an acquaintance of hers from RRCC could stay in our spare room until the end of the semester, as her situation at home was not healthy. "S" moved her dresser and TV in, and we hardly knew she was here. She is a nanny and goes to school. She seemed to function.
     Then she adopted a dog. She is essentially homeless, and she adopted a dog.
Did I mention she did not ask us about adopting a dog?
     OK, maybe not functioning.
     Also, what shelter allowed this to happen?   
     We cannot have a second dog, and she did not ask us first, so I told her no when she arrived with the dog. I'm compassionate, but not kind. I cannot have two dogs, no nope nope. The dog went to live with her friend. Jim and I had many conversations about dogs, and he knew a woman growing up that "always had twelve hounds" running around, and he hated it. We are not the Bumpuses, we will not be the Bumpuses.
      Then G texted that her counselor at college recommended that she get a therapy dog, as her anxiety (A Gorgeous Family Trait We Are Proud To Have Passed On) is increasing exponentially as she approaches graduation. She and I and Jim had several conversations about her finding a different dorm room for her and her dog, paperwork for a therapy dog, the fact that it would be our dog when she moved home after graduation, and finally that over the break we will have a second dog.
      As a family we acquiesced and G adopted a bear named "Zeppelin", who is part chow and part lab. He is a year old and weighs 75 pounds. Oy. She clearly has no idea what a zeppelin is or she would have known he was going to continue to grow.
      Whilst all of this was occurring, H became attached to an elderly dog at the shelter who needed a home. As we knew Zep would be joining us, Jim and I said firmly NO THIRD DOG NO.
      However, there I was at the shelter visiting Yuri, because he was supposedly only going to live a few months, and Jim and I whispered that maybe that was OK...if it was temporary, he has arthritis and is not barky. H and I left without Yuri as he was awfully spry for his posted expiration date, and G was driving back home from Durango with a bear. We figured it'd be best to meet Zep first and get him settled with Marty and the five cats before talking about Yuri the Dying Senior Dog.
     The minute Zep entered the house we knew Yuri was not happening. Zeppelin is a bear, as you know if you read the previous paragraph closely. I told G the shelter had lied to her and she should call her congressman, as they are clearly passing off brown bears as dogs in Durango.   
     Side note but worthy note: Our beloved 14 year old lab Sundown died last November. On the 7th of November. Zeppelin was born last November on the 8th. I don't believe in coincidences. 
     At exactly the same time G was arriving home, S's friend's living situation had deteriorated beyond her, and both her friend and the dog became homeless.
     Jim and I were out, finally, seeing Christopher Titus when H texted to ask if S's friend could also stay with us. I said "That means the dog, too, H, we can't have a third dog." We got home and both girls, the dog and a cat were in my spare room.   
     My anxiety flared.
     I intended to come home from the comedy club and kick them out.
     Do not take advantage. I am sorry your parents are shitty, that's not my problem and it's a separate blog. As  teacher I have seen it time and again, and I was raised in a house with a mom who took in my friends when they ran away, constantly. We had a friend of mine live with us. Jim has a similar story, his friend Steve lived with them. All that was  fine, none of those people took advantage.
      Jim said "Krys, don't kick them out. That's not Christian. It's not their fault this happened."
      Instead, I had a stern conversation with them and the cat left the house.
     Then it became known that "S" was not moving out the second week of December as I thought, she intends to stay until she moves into her dorm in January. Her friend has vague plans to get an apartment and has no exit date.
      My anxiety went China Syndrome, and I forced everyone into a living room meeting, with words and eye contact. I have been kind in the past,  and every time that I am, I get taken advantage of. I will not be taken advantage of, but I will attempt kind. I am compassionate, never doubt that, but compassion and kindness are completely different. Kind is giving a card that says thanks, compassion is giving emotional support that is real and will not be thrown out. I've never been a fan of kind, but H, as a soon to be graduated massage therapist, started her Be Kind Save the Bees mantra and called me out.
       So I made them commit to dates. Whether she goes to college and moves into the dorms is not my problem, she's out of my house by the first of January. Whether her friend finds an apartment or not, she's out by then too. That's as far as I can go with "kind". I'm in theatre for a reason, I love deadlines, they address my anxiety and calm me down. I cannot function if anything is vague. I need a hard date and a curtain time, and others need to abide by them. That is part of what worked against Yuri the senior dog; his expiration date was too vague.
     So one girl is in the spare room upstairs, on the weird fold out bed thing we bought for G over the summer that H had turned into her Cat Lounge, and they rebuilt G's old Ikea bed so the friend is downstairs in the office. G and H will share H's room, as both have boyfriends whose houses they will be at on and off all week. If I am lucky, the apartment girl will find a place before Christmas so G can have a room in her own house for the month that she will be home.
      And I have three dogs.
      We agreed that H and I would actively try to re home the orphan dog, as he should not have to return to the shelter just because the girl who adopted him does not have a fully developed frontal lobe and adopted a dog while she herself was homeless. There is no kindness here, I am all of the judge-y about this. We will find a new home for this dog, who is honestly very pretty and cute and not trained at all, and H is getting attached...quick, somebody. Give this pup a home.
      Every Thanksgiving, I grouse that I'm not doing enough. When I was younger I drove for Meals on Wheels for PWA, for Volunteers of America, gave money to the Daddy Bruce Thanksgiving. I had a full house of my family and Jim's family and drank and enjoyed the quiet and questioned if I had really done enough.
       I woke up today, Monday, of Thanksgiving week. I started laundry and walked past the office where I heard a young lady who is not my daughter sneeze. The other young lady who is not my daughter and is staying upstairs texted when she left for work to let me know two of the dogs were outside already.
       Can I honestly call it "enough" if I have an orphan dog, my daughter's dog, freaking Marty The Spaz, five cats and two people not related to me filling up my house? All of them are "rescues".
       Is giving shelter to people and animals "enough" for the season?
       Thanksgiving 2017.
       I'll keep you posted.
     
This is Zeppelin. He was here barely an hour before H gave him a lymphatic massage for his sinuses.

 kwmartin 11/2/17 not facebook post

Molly and Tahoe

I do my best to connect current students with working actors and techies, internships and alumni. All kinds of alumni, from actors to recent college grads to massage therapists. If you were a theatre kid and you wanna come teach a thing or tell stories, you are welcomed back with open arms.

Today I booked two alum who graduated together in 2006 and haven't seen one another in ten years. I thought a nice reunion would be a different spin, and I've never booked two on the same day. Also Tahoe, who is IT for the Denver Broncos, was appearing live while Molly was skyping in from LA. At first I thought it was a great idea, and then this morning I thought it was a terrible idea, and then Tahoe walked in the door of 146 and I knew it was a good idea. As soon as I saw him I hugged him so hard I don't think he could breathe.I kept telling him how grown up he looked, and he just kept saying "I know, right?" He has a successful career, marriage and two beautiful children and was willing to share his stories. When he saw Molly again I could see it all come flooding back with them as well, and it was difficult for the two of them to focus on talking to the class instead of reminiscing with one another. Though that did happen, and it was lovely.

The first thing I noticed, after the Bronco zipper jacket, was the ridiculous bling on his finger. How out of character for Tahoe, a quiet and generally mild mannered kid, to be wearing something that looks like it belongs to the "Liberace House of Crap", to borrow a phrase from Friends.

I looked closer.

Holy "House of Crap", it's a Super Bowl ring. OF COURSE! He has a Super Bowl ring. He works for the Broncos, without him all the cool IT stuff is just...door stops. I have never been so close to anything nearly this cool, and it's difficult to not paw at it like a raccoon at a hot dog.

Tahoe's stories are Tahoe's, as are Molly's, so I will not share them here except to say that Tahoe met Slash and Beyonce, which to my students was cooler than the Super Bowl ring, and Molly knows more than she's willing to share but you don't mind, because her huge smile and light giggle are beautiful. The faces she made when Tahoe asked about how the "Weinstein thing" has changed the conversation in Hollywood communicated "We probably shouldn't talk about this in a high school" minutes before she said it. 

They shared and  balanced and surprised us with an intimate story or two. I was just sitting there, enjoying their voices and faces and feeling Theaco listen and react, and then Tahoe had to leave. I guess he has a job or something, maybe that ring is like a leash. Molly remained on Skype and the conversation deteriorated- as conversations are wont to do with teenagers when they exceed an hour- to one of my students naming "hot actors" in an effort to learn how many of them Molly actually knows. I knew none of the names that were thrown out, but apparently Molly has worked with or met all of them so...bonus.

One of my kids was quite taken with Tahoe's journey, and is inspired that he is happy without a college degree, but with so much life experience. One of the kids was astounded at how much Molly works, and they all have  a clearer understanding of how much work is involved in doing anything successfully. Molly and Tahoe both emphasized the importance of doing what you love and surrounding yourself with people who both love you and push you. Molly gave me a little  thumbs up on that last part, giving validation to my directing and teaching philosophy. I mention it because it meant a great deal to me to have successful, functioning human beings thank me for being hard on them. You're welcome. I love you, too.

"Carlton", mentioned in a previous blog,  sat through the entire 80 minutes like he was suffering from shpilkes, his leg shaking constantly. When Molly started to wrap up, he suddenly thrust his hand into the air to ask a question. As I've said previously,his Theaco has truly rallied around him, and they all made sure Molly acknowledged his question, as he was seated out of camera shot (of course he was). He wouldn't speak up, however, so we made him stand in front of the camera so she could see who she was talking to. He looked directly into the camera and said "What is the best processed noodle product flavor for the end of the month?" We all withheld our laughter so Molly could be heard, but inside we were dying. I've said it before: Asperger's kids are the living embodiment of Absurdism.

Molly had fielded questions about college, agents, managers, sexual harassment, being a working actor, her dog and high school. She treated this question just like the others. She smiled, measured her options, and finally answered "Chicken, but chicken flavor, not with the chunks."

Carlton pumped the sky with his fist and smiled, and Theaco applauded as only people who know how to appreciate such weirdness can applaud. Molly giggled and asked "Was that the right answer?"

"It made Carlton happy, that's all we care about," I answered. She giggled again and seemed pleased she got it right.

Since we were winding down, anyway, another member of Theaco piped up: " Molly, according to your Wikipedia, you work a lot with Disney. Do they hire a lot of young actors?"

Again, Theaco erupted in laughter and applause. They appreciated that someone was owning what they were all doing, which was looking up/following Molly on various social media sites while talking to her on Skype. Kids today...

Even I learned a few things about my alumni:
Neither of these kids has a college degree.
They are both truly happy with their life choices.

Scene.

Letting Go

It seems so simple. I mean, little girls can belt it regularly and you can tell they mean it. They are ready to LET IT GO! They sing with wild abandon, sometimes wearing a green dress, sometimes sitting on their sister, sometimes into a hairbrush. Let It Go.

The Serenity Prayer asks for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference. "Change", in my life, means "control" and I really can't tell the difference.

See the thing is, I'm right. I'm  100 % of the time categorically and inarguably right.

Always.

It's a burden.

It's a gift.

It sucks.

It causes major anxiety, as I worry and pace because I know someone is making a stupid choice and they aren't listening to me and if they would only just listen and let me run their life it'd be so much better. Learn from my mistakes, I'm begging you! Please stop making your own.

This was only irksome in my twenties. At 52, and as a parent, it is positively debilitating. And my children, being my children with mini invisible mohawks but every ounce of that attitude, refuse to listen to me ever ever ever because they think I just have anxiety and that I am wrong, even though they have evidence to the contrary. Every time something went wrong, I knew it was going to go wrong and I gave them a heads up to avoid what I see and they chose, instead, to tell me to let it go!

Aaannnnnnd....I was right. Every. Freaking. Time.

And this time, this time I really have to walk away. Let it go.

It hath made me mad. Mad, I tell you. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, and I now understand why people say they "throw themselves into work to avoid their personal life." Well, I threw myself into my personal life to avoid the trauma of my work, only to discover that I have no idea who I am or what I want, and my children are stubborn, and I overlooked my personal life for years to throw myself into my work, which no longer exists so...

My definition of "support"  has apparently been tied to control. I had a principal (four principals ago....three principals ago...?) flat out laugh and tell me I was a control freak. She was addressing my approaches to teaching, and I was pointing out how student led my department is. And while she acquiesced to the later, she still claimed that I was a control freak, and I needed to let things go. I mistakenly thought she was talking about my teaching methods, but clearly she was calling me on something much bigger that I did not see at the time.

And so, as the universe is wont to do when you refuse to let go, it will do it for you. And it won't be pretty, it won't be subtle, it will be wrenching. I  first experienced this when I started teaching. I was holding on to a dead end but well paid job waiting tables, being a stay at home mom and generally doing nothing about a career. It was a routine and the money was good. Then, suddenly, and without warning...I was fired.

Well, shit.

Jim and I turned to one another and started quoting Dory in Finding Nemo.
   "Let go!"
   "How do you know it's going to be all right?"
   "I don't!"

So we did, and I embarked on a teaching career, that I thought would be my final career. Letting go was scary as hell, we worried about money, about how I could possibly work full time with the girls in first and third grade, but once we let go it just happened. The job at Littleton literally fell into my lap, and there you have it.

For the first few years the struggle was awful, but I loved teaching and building the department,and magically babysitters and rides just appeared to help manage the girls' schedules. I cried a lot, I screamed a lot, but I wanted to run the department, so I persevered.

I cite the first two years as hell and the next five as almost heaven.

I had complete control of the classes, IB Theatre, the shows, training actors and techies, training designers, hiring alumni to help with tech, everything. Then the administration changed, and the renovation ripped Maris apart from stem to stern and everything that was under my control...was no longer. Just like that.

Well, shit.

Fourteen years after letting go of what was and embracing the moment, I have been stripped of directing at the school, my stage is dead and my department as a whole is on the ropes. I've tried for a year and a half to hold it together with little success, manically waving my arms in an attempt to regain control. In the meantime, my beautiful and talented 21 and 20 year old children are embarking on their own lives, making their own difficult and beautiful and difficult life choices. And I look at them and become anxious and controlling and they need support, not control and it turns out...I have no idea what "support" means. I am looking to them, because I have lost control of my theatre and anything that was a career. It was taken from me, because I needed to let go (apparently, I'm still unclear in this area), and did not. So it was taken. And without directing and designing and building and producing and shopping and all of those things that go with running the department, I'm assigning four page essays to LA9 Honors freshmen that I then have to grade, and back to freaking out because my children will not let me run their lives.

But dammit, I know what's best.

This is why I am not, nor will I ever be, an adult.

I think adults have the serenity to accept the things they cannot control, to control the things they can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

In short, an adult knows how to Let It Go.

These are my thoughts,
respectfully submitted
K.Martin
Physically 52 years old but clearly not an adult.