50th Post!

Well, dear Spackleonians, I finally made it! 50 posts!! And I did it in less than 2 years, so that averages out to be about one post every 1.5 weeks. I'm impressed with myself.

So today, which should have been an easy day, ended up being decidedly not easy. I normally have Fridays off (I know, what a hard life I lead), but I needed to go into work today to finish up a project that I've been working on that's a bit time sensitive. It involves lots of rounds of editing by other people, and sadly something that I would have liked to have finished yesterday remains unfinished, despite about 5 hours of frantic work today, and a few more that I'll put in tomorrow. Most likely won't be done until Monday at the earliest. That's the way it goes, I guess.

I'm back to being a Substitute Company Manager this weekend. Teresa is taking her leftover vacation days (since her previous vacation was cut short by Hurricane Irene), which gives me the opportunity to fill in as CM for DREAMS OF FLYING DREAMS OF FALLING by Adam Rapp. It's a really interesting, funny, dark, and bizarre show, and I'll be honest I'm not sure that I understand what it's about. But it's still good! (and it's playing until the 30th, with great seats available!) A great cast, and a really nice production staff. We're still out of house, so this show is at Classic Stage Company on East 13th Street and 3rd Avenue. A nice space to be in, and the first theater I've worked at outside of Atlantic Stage 2. I have to say that it's been really great, because while I love Stage 2, and it will always hold a special place in my heart, it's a total pain to work at for a whole slew of logistical reasons. Kind of makes working at a more normally laid-out theater a breeze.

Anyway, folks, I've been kind of sitting on a decision for a little while, and haven't really made it too public (though it hasn't been a secret either). I figure I should put it out there now, since it seems pretty likely. When my current job at Atlantic ends on or about November 17th, I will be moving back to Pittsburgh, indefinitely. There are a lot of factors contributing to this, from personal to financial to logistical, but at the end of the day, there's a part of me that really just wants to be at home. Interestingly November 17th will be exactly 6 months to the day from my first day of work this summer, which was only 2 days after I graduated. And since I had a whirlwind of a stressful end-of-school-year that immediately rolled into a new job in a new city, sleeping on Matt's floor, looking for housing and not finding it, looking for full-time work and not getting it, and everything else that happened, I never really got a chance to decompress after school was done. I had spent 20 years of my life more or less constantly in school, and I didn't have an opportunity to re-group after that chapter closed. And I think I need it now. I need the chance to be at home, to sleep in my own bed, to not live out of a suitcase, or in a subleased apartment, to spend time with my family, to unwind a little and figure out what direction I want my life to take. I've been making a lot of tactical decisions these past 6 months, and being very reactive. I would like the chance to be able to be more strategic, to be more proactive. I want to plot a course for the next phase of my life instead of just going where the wind takes me.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going home to be a couch potato and just slip into unemployed doldrums. I've already started working with Blue Tip Energy (my dad's company) again, and will continue to do so. I have some feelers out to try to get involved with some film production going on in Pittsburgh while I'm there. And I'm actively working to go out on tour as an Assistant Company Manager sometime in the next few months. So when I go to Pittsburgh, while it is indefinite, that's only because I don't yet know how long it will be for, but I expect that it won't be more than a month or two.

I guess it's funny how differently our lives can turn out from what we planned. I don't suppose that's an altogether bad thing, either, because I'll be the first to recognize that some of the best things that have ever happened to me in my life came completely out of left field and had very little to do with whatever "plans" I had for myself. This time 6 years ago I was just being accepted into the NROTC program, and I fully intended to commit my life to the service of my country, and look at me now. Everything that has happened in the last 6 years is so radically different from how I thought it would be, but I have to say that 99% of it is better than what I had planned for myself anyway. I don't know that that's how it will work out this time, but I have reason to believe that it will, at least in part.

I don't know exactly where the next few months will take me, and how my plans for myself will evolve, disconnected as they may be from reality. I do know that I've recently found myself ready to embrace whatever is up next for me. I'm really ready to start moving forward. I was sort in a holding pattern for a long time, and I think I'm ready to get out of it. It won't necessarily be easy, but I think I've already made an important step.

And I just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads this blog. I know that a big part of The Adventures of Spackle is me giving mundane updates on my comings and goings, but it has been really helpful for me to be able to put my thoughts out there, and to know that someone is on the other side reading it. I appreciate you sticking with me through my incredibly erratic posting habits, and my often long-winded and pedantic entries. Here's to another 50 posts, and the hope that when I'm writing my 100th my life will be completely different from how I think it will be. Here's to everything being better.

Keep calm and carry on.