Why I'm writing this blog.

“People often ask me what is the most effective technique for transforming their life. It is a little embarrassing that after years and years of research and experimentation, I have to say that the best answer is – just be a little kinder.” Aldous Huxley


“My religion is kindness.” The Dalia Lama

***

I akin it to being struck in the head.

The blinding, shocking act of unkindness that undid me.

I had worked at the children’s theatre for nearly five years. My own childhood had been a place of sorrow and shadows, so being part of a place of childhood whimsy and joy had been a healing element in my life. Before I came to the children’s theatre, by my early 20’s I was afloat, alone and without the support of my family. I chose the world of theatre, and the pseudo family-like feeling of each production’s cast and crew. As an actor, writer and director, I eked out my craft. Each rehearsal and performance period we would bond so tightly, bare our most vulnerable bits, share intense experiences and sometimes romances. But each production has an expiration date. I both desired and hated that. I would bond with the other artists, and then move on, possibly (and often intentionally) never seeing the others again. Afterwards I would puzzle at how much of myself I had exposed and retreat, embarrassed, to my lonely apartment and solitary life. I was intensely isolated, but like a groove in a record, this was the tune I knew, so I played it over and over.

I slipped, first casually, then seriously into drugs. I longed to be numb to how much being alive and aware hurt. But I was alive, and so very aware, and no amount of escape seemed to turn off my cleaver, observant little brain. I descended deeper and deeper into a womb of my own making - a thick haze of pot smoke, alcohol and empty relationships. No one, nothing got close to the tight ball of hurt I was gestating. The progression was gradual, but it came to a point where I was getting high nearly every day, and when I reached that point I stayed there for about a year and a half. My routine: function daily, go to work, go home, get stoned, sleep, do it again. And again, and again. I don’t know how well I actually functioned and how much I was fooling myself. There were certainly mistakes I made and follies I can’t undo. Somehow I survived, even when the choices I made teetered almost over the edge of stupidity toward the suicidal.

Then I had a moment of clarity – I saw, clear as day, that I was existing within a state of suspended animation, understood that I had isolated myself, and knew this had to change.

The road out was harrowing, but there were good, honest people and buckets full of kindness along the way. More on that later. What I’ll tell you is that I healed, or that I am on an eternal path of healing.

Along that path, I found my job at the children’s theatre. Initially it was an incredibly happy place to work – there was magic on stage and it was a deeply humane place to work where people seemed to genuinely care about each other’s wellbeing. Looking back through the dirty filter of what followed, I can’t help but wonder if it was actually so idyllic, but I think it was. There were puppets, Technicolor costumes, theatre that cut right to the heart of things and endless waves of children’s laughter and joy to float upon. There was camaraderie and fun among staff, and when a good idea arose, it was embraced, supported and tested. It seemed to be a genuine home for me and many others. Hind sight being 20/20, I understand my love and devotion to a work place was mislaid, but back then it seemed perfectly reasonable to pour all my care, energy and attention into my work.

Then the artistic director became unwell, and a new general manager with a lack of what is fondly referred to as “people skills” took over.

The new general manager wasn’t open to possibilities. She wasn’t open in general. She would become angry at staff solely because they didn’t understand her commands – not because they disagreed, but simply because they didn’t understand what she wanted. It became impossible to approach her with even the simplest inquiry for fear she would blow up or make your life miserable. Communication disintegrated, and everyone worked under a veil of stress and uncertainty that had not been there before. For a time, I wasn’t affected by her behavior, and I smugly contented myself thinking “not me – I have the magic touch.” She was bullying staff – my friends – and making uninformed decisions that made everyone miserable. Eventually it spilled over to my work too, when she demanded I redundantly re-write reports I was already writing, by hand, and attach these hand written notes to the very reports I was creating, simply so she wouldn’t have to turn the page and read the same information in a typed and more clearly laid out manner.

Numerous coworkers and I held on to the nostalgia of how things used to be. The theatre had once been a place of infinite possibilities, but now we were hanging on to the possibility of possibilities. As our little community crumbled, I truly believed things would get better. It was the closest thing I had to a sense of family, and having never before felt “at home” it wasn’t something easy to give up on. Surly the ailing Artistic Director would see what was going on and put a stop to it. Surly the General Manager would come to her senses and see she didn’t need to have her hackles up at every moment.

No. Sadly things would not get better.

At the same time as this shift at the theatre from sweet to sour was occurring I was also getting engaged to Josh, the man who would become my husband. Josh is basically kindness manifest, but more on him later. What would be more natural, we said, than to incorporate both of our “homes” into our wedding? We would have the ceremony at the theatre and have the reception at Josh’s parents’ country home, where he had grown up. At the children’s theatre, a meeting was held between the Artistic Director, General Manager, Production Manager and I, an agreement was made on the date and time, and everything was set. This occurred six months before the wedding.

Six months of planning between Josh’s family, my friends and all the wedding people rolled along.

Then 10 days before the wedding, the General Manager decided our wedding would not occur, or if it was to occur, it would occur in the lobby.

She did not tell me this herself. She sent someone else to do her bidding. There were complications with a play that was in rehearsal – a play that had not even been on the roster the six months previous when we had scheduled the wedding. A play that was a touring production, and could be packed up and moved wherever and whenever need be. Because so many of my friends worked alongside me, I learned later that the complications that caused the general manager to make this decision could have been resolved with some effort on her part. If she had valued me as a human being or as an employee, she could have acted in kindness, rather than desperation. If she had been a kind and considerate manager, she would have built relationships with all her staff making it easy to work this out, but she had built walls not bridges. Rather than taking on the challenge of working the situation out, she instead chose the easier way of doing nothing and leaving my husband and I, less than two weeks before our wedding, with the choice of getting married in public lobby – space with no special meaning to either of us and a wall of windows out onto a busy intersection—or finding somewhere else at the very last moment.

Did I mention all of Josh’s family was coming in from out of town? That this was ten days, but only 8 business days before the wedding? Or that invitations – with the theatre listed as the location – had been sent out months ago? That instead of decorations, we were going to use set pieces at the theatre that could not be transported elsewhere? That we had arranged for chair rentals and a carriage ride to pick us up at the theatre door? That Josh and his best men had booked rooms in a hotel across the street from the theatre? That everything, everything was set, and we were supposed to be basically relaxing for the handful of days leading up to the wedding?

I was devastated, Josh was devastated, but we didn’t have time to pause. There was no way we were getting married in a lobby, or in a place that had no regard for us or the importance of the day, and there was precious little time to reschedule everything, contact all the guests and on and on and on…

With a lot of help from our family and loved ones, in the most hectic 10 days of our lives, we found another venue, rescheduled everything and marched down the aisle.

Instead of the days leading up to the wedding being joyous, it was instead a traumatic and hectic time. I was knocked on my ear. Was this really the “family” I had believed it to be? I had given my all, and nearly five years of my life to a theatre that could not afford us the decency of giving us our wedding day, a theatre that was managed by someone who did not even have the decency to apologize for doing so. Never mind the time I had devoted to the children’s theatre, what about the 15 years total I had dedicated to the art form itself? That thing I had so desired from the path I had taken – the feeling of acceptance, support and community – was crushed with a single act of unkindness.

I had planned our wedding as a sort of rebirth for me. The wedding occurred the day before my 30th birthday, and I was most certainly starting again. I had wanted my theatre “family” there, and then it had all gone to shit. As my mother-in-law Roseann (a fierce and wonderful woman) pointed out to me when this catastrophe struck: “they’re not your family. We’re your family now.” Oh. Damn. I wish I’d figured that out before. Sigh. Needless to say, after the wedding, I left the children’s theatre as soon as I could find another job.

It’s been over a year and a half since the wedding fiasco. I must admit it was a rebirth, just like I wanted, but I am still stunned by the change. Be careful what you ask for, right?

I don’t know what I want or who I am anymore.

I am a drift. Anchorless.

So here’s the thing: if I am to recreate myself, there is choice involved. Do I want to define myself by my career path any longer? Not particularly. So who will I be, and how shall I define myself? I’ve been waiting for the universe to put me on the right path until now, to dump some answer into my lap, throwing resumes out to the wind, trying on different careers, but that’s lead to a year and a half of purgatory.

My solution is kindness. If an act of kindness undid me, then certainly, through kindness I can find myself again. This will not be a blog of Pollyanna goodliness. I will swear and sometimes be a shitty person. I will boast and be an egotistical brat. I will do things you may think are ugly. I will also seek to change the world through kindness.

Welcome to Gifts in Kind.