I'm a Complete Mess After the Boston Marathon Bombings

     This past weekend, I worked one of the most fun weekends I've ever worked, leading up to the Boston Marathon.  My coworkers and I were right in the thick of the action on Boylston Street and in Copley Square, interacting with runners and their families for 10 hours a day, taking photos, wishing them luck on their runs.  I love the photos I have from that weekend, even if I can't look at them right now.  I was beyond excited to celebrate my first Marathon Monday as an official citizen of the Greater Boston Area; leading up to this, I had always lived vicariously through the crowds by watching the news either as a teenager in Southeastern MA or as a New Yorker desperately missing Boston and New England.  I went to bed exhausted from a long weekend but excited to wake up and cheer some of those runners we had met as they crossed the finish line, mingle with business owners I had gotten to know, run into new or old friends if they were there...It was going to be a wonderful day.

    Monday I experienced a domino effect morning that kept me from getting to the Marathon when I had planned to.  First I slept past my alarm, then I noticed we were out of toilet paper so I ran to CVS to get some, which turned into grocery shopping and getting cleaning supplies, which turned into an impromptu apartment cleaning, and then I hopped in the shower to get ready to leave.  I got out of the shower around 2:30 and got some lunch, prepping to throw on whatever was lying around and try to convince my roommates to accompany me to the Pru, or maybe near the Thai restaurant that is my favorite in the city - a quarter block from Marathon Sports - so we could cheer on the runners that weren't the "elite", but were still amazing for finishing such a challenging course.  I was mildly cranky with myself that I had fallen behind schedule and hoped I could be there by 3:30 latest.

    I went to my room to change and saw all of these texts asking if I was alright.  Saw the words "Explosion" and "Marathon". I barreled out of my room, almost knocking my roommate over in the process, and turned on the news.

   That's when I saw what the rest of the world was seeing.  I don't remember much except for the fact that after a long time I decided I should probably put on real clothes instead of being wrapped in a bath towel, staring at the screen, if we were all going to be sitting together and watching this unfold.

   I imagine that my experience after that is similar to what many Bostonians went through.  The shock, frantically texting friends and family to not only make sure they were okay but to assure them that we were, gathering with friends, roommates, significant others and family in front of TVs and trying to process the fact that something so horrible happened in our city.  Most of us made the mistake of going on social media and realized that the same friends who are so quick to post rapidfire memes would also be the first ones to share photos of the carnage, usually with some false information attached.  I don't know what I was looking for on Facebook, but I didn't find it there.  That night I fell asleep on our couch watching the news, which  was a stupid idea that led to a series of nightmares that I finally gave up on sleeping through around 2.  That's when I started to realize that the shock of the event was wearing off and something else was bubbling up inside of me.

   I'm going to put it as frankly as I can:  I'm a f***ing mess right now.  I can't eat.  I can't sleep for more than an hour at a time.  I keep having these dreams where I'm in that spot, the spot I would have been in had we worked one more day and the spot I would have tried to be in had a series of delays not kept me from there, and the people I met this weekend are the ones on the ground.  Or my boyfriend.  Or my friends, or most horrifyingly, my family.  And I can't do anything.  I feel as powerless as I felt on Monday afternoon.


   And the crying?  Dear God.  I'm falling apart.  It's like this wave keeps crashing down on me and I can't fight it or get away from it, so I just let the grief and emotions I feel for this city, these victims, and their loved ones take over.  It's so scary not to be in control of your emotions or know when a crying spell is going to pop up   I can't do any of the things I usually do to feel good: yoga, singing, being with friends, because all of those seem to trigger these spells. That's how it's been for me since 2am Tuesday morning, and I'm just trying to keep it together the best I can in public.

   Except when I apparently can't.

   Last night I went to an audition and completely broke down in front of a director I have always wanted to work with.  It was mortifying, and nothing that I had in my control-freak arsenal could stop it.   Somehow I was asked to read a few times, but then after I was released and sat in the holding room, waiting for my boyfriend to finish up so I could get to rehearsal, and I noticed that I seemed to be the only one in the room who couldn't hold it together.  I felt like a freak, honestly. He was mingling and laughing with a group he was reading with, some Emerson students were discussing how crazy things had been downtown...And the wave came back.  I had to get out of the room and out of the building.  I brushed past my boyfriend, ran down the stairs and tried to find the bus stop to take me back into Boston, even though I knew it would take longer, I wasn't familiar with the neighborhood, and I wasn't really in the right condition to be alone.  I found the stop but missed the bus.  My boyfriend texted me to come back inside but I refused.  I was just so angry with everything and everyone, and I didn't even realize how badly I was crying and shaking until a group of guys my age stopped to see if I was okay.  By the time my boyfriend found me I had made my way to a cafe around the corner from the theater and had calmed down slightly, but the second I got back in his car the tears began again, and 12 hours later they haven't stopped.  He feels frustrated that he can't do anything to make them stop, but no one can.  Not even I can. I'm accepting that they're just working their way out of me at this point, but up until I called my mom I couldn't stop feeling guilty for being so upset.  Why am I so upset?  I wasn't there; I got lucky!  I should be celebrating!

    But I'm not.  I'm grieving.  For Boston, for those who lost their lives, limbs, feelings of safety in a city that has always felt so safe.  I'm grieving for the people that I met for a few minutes at a time this weekend, the ones who had worked so hard to be here, the families that were so excited to travel into the city to cheer their loved ones on, the woman who said "God bless you" to everyone she met because she was just so excited to be here, the man who hugged all of us, the runners holding their children in their arms, beaming over the thought of seeing their faces at the finish line.  I keep wondering, were any of them there?  Are any of them hurt?  I don't have to wonder if they were affected.

   Look, I know that there are people that are suffering way more than I am.  I know how lucky I am that no one I know and love was there.  I know how close a shave it was for me not to be there and I am grateful. Long after this insanity I'm experiencing wears off the gratitude I have for living in such an amazing place with amazing people will be just as strong. But this city is my home.  Those people are my fellow humans.  And they're suffering.  And I can't apologize for how much I'm crying, for my uncontrollable emotions, for my grief.



  

"I'M FINE!" On Crying in Public.

Hoooooooo boy.

Today was not one of my better days.  Understatement.

For one, the sinus infection that's been plaguing me for over a week decided to steal my voice after a few days, and I've only gotten a little bit back.  If this was a hostage situation, the amount of voice that I have back right now would be the equivalent of getting a hostage's finger mailed back to me or something.

With sliver 'o voice in tow, I dragged myself to an audition last night.  An audition that meant a lot to me.  An audition for a company I want to work with, for people I already work with in one way but want to work with acting-wise, too.

And I booooooombed it. I was too wrapped up in my weird chain-smoker with laryngitis voice, totally in my head, using a new monologue...It wasn't good.  Then I proceeded to get into a mini-spat with The Dude over men and women in theatre, ending with "men have it better in theatre you stupid man who will always have more chances...Wait, that was mean, I'm sorry, let's hug now".  Except we were at our respective homes, so I didn't get to give or receive a hug, I just sat in my bed feeling like an asshole. 

Then this morning I had a discussion about my life with two very nice women, and at one point we talked about family.  I mentioned how I've had to borrow money from my mom in the past, how it's something that makes me feel horrible and stressed because I know how horribly this country treats public school teachers when it comes to financial income, and then a thought that has clearly been rumbling around deep within me somewhere came to the surface:

"I wonder sometimes, if she ever regrets being so supportive of me."

That did it.  I lost it.  I lost all composure and about five gallons of water in front of people I had just met.

There's something simultaneously freeing and horrifying about ugly crying in front of people who have just met you.  On one hand, you'll probably never see them again, and if you do, there's really nowhere to go but up, right?  On the other hand, crying in front of strangers has to be the scariest damn thing because you're vulnerable to them from the get-go.  It's pretty much wearing a bikini into the town square of a dangerous country and yelling "TOURIST BY HERSELF HERE!"

Also, I've noticed that in Boston, public crying really isn't as much of a "thing".  When I lived in NYC, it was almost par for the course to see someone quietly crying on the train at least once a week.   Having grown up here I know that it's not as common to air one's emotional laundry in public, and especially not cry...Any time the home team loses an important game being the exception.  I just kept getting angrier and angrier with myself for crying, and of course, when I'm angry...I cry.  So the tears kept coming.

By some sort of grace (okay, that word has no place in this post), I made it through the rest of the conversation with whatever was left of my dignity somewhat intact outwardly, but on the inside I knew.  I just knew: I was in for a tearmageddon.

After this conversation, I made my way over to a Thai restaurant I frequent to grab lunch before a work meeting, where the "no voice/bad audition/mean to boyfriend/how will I ever repay my mom" demons followed me and I continued to quietly sob over my lunch, trying to excuse the tears with a weak smile and "whooo, spicy curry" at the server, who looked at me as if to say this is yellow curry and in no way spicy, but you're clearly crying in public so I'll just nod and smile and bring you more water.  Then I continued up Boylston on a walk from Chinatown to my meeting across town, still crying and getting a little worried about my hydration levels.  I made it through my work meeting okay and then teared up in front of a friend and coworker, then took the bus to rehearsal where I completely broke down and bawled in front of my director.

Here's the shocking thing:  Nobody judged me for it. In fact, people either let me be or were completely supportive of me.

I should in no way be surprised.  After all, I would never judge anyone crying in public and would be supportive if given the chance.  But I hold myself to a higher standard, and was silently judging myself with each tear that fell from my eyes (if we're keeping count, about 3,984,902 judgments).

The strangers told me that I was inspiring for bucking comfort for passion when it came to my career path, my coworker totally saw where I was coming from and gave me support, my director talked to me for a good 45 minutes about everything and gave me wonderful advice.

At the end of the day, I have sore eyes, a seemingly unquenchable thirst, a remaining load of worries, but some comfort in the fact that I was able to be human in public and survived, and even came out a little better for it.  I still wish I had a better audition, I still worry about money and have guilt from having to borrow when employers don't pay on time, I still am kind of at a career crossroads, but I know I'm not alone in having had a completely horrible couple of days where the waterworks were inevitable.

Oh, and after a piece of what was supposed to be some comfort food by way of pecan pie, I have also discovered that I might have developed a slight allergy to pecans.  No, I'm not posting pictures.  Just Google "pink inner tube" and you'll have a good idea of what my lips currently look like (because they weren't full enough already).  The reaction is, of course, making me cry a little,  but at least this time I got to have a little pie first.