Solo explorer. NYC #4

"I prefer to explore the world alone".

That phrase came to me yesterday and inside I yelled, yes! 

It was one of those days where I had some time to just be.  To think.  That combined with a long talk with my mom the night before helped me to sort some things out.

Last weekend one of my very best friends was in the city and we got to spend two days visiting old haunts and catching up.  It was like picking up where it had all left off...except a decade had passed.  I was telling her how I can usually identify what's wrong if I'm having some kind of inner turmoil.  She asked how and I told her it was because I am pretty self aware.  It may take me a minute, but I can always trace it.

When I first arrived in NYC I was full of anxiety and remained so the first couple of days.  I could hardly eat.  Now, I feel great, open, ready, and appreciative.  But what was that stress manifesting itself physically? Well, a few things.  But in the last two days I traced the main source.  You ready? It will seem to go against what I stand for and what I do.

Vulnerability.

I totally forgot what it was like to be a student.  If I'd have remembered ahead of time I might have chickened out.  Okay, not really.  I wouldn't have let myself.  And maybe it's for the best to just be thrown back in.

Being a student is completely different from being an actor.  Being a professional actor.  Being in a play.  Being in an audition.  Being in a callback.  Being a student is really hard for me.  It's kind of the worst.  And that's why I know I need it.  It's terrifying.  It doesn't matter what I've done or experienced in my acting career, being in the setting of a classroom makes me feel like I'm inside out.  I feel like me, Deena (not a character) is exposed.  Exposed and under a microscope and open for discussion.  Vulnerable.  And even thinking about it makes me want to cry.

Isn't that interesting? 

What else does that mean? Does it mean I'm comfortable being other people more than myself? Does it mean I don't like to reveal the real me? I don't like to invite in? Maybe bits of all of the above.

One thing I know about myself, is I can't force anything.  I can want to achieve something but until I reach it on my own time, it's not going to happen.  This applies to everything.  In a classroom I can have a bit of a struggle because I want to take the information and mull it over.  Ponder, think, dig deep, take my time.  I can't always make quick changes or conclusions.  Sometimes I can, but usually it gives me anxiety.  I like to let myself be and think first.

I still can take away what happens in the course of a short class and understand time is limited and I'm here for only a little under two months and this is how it is.  I get that.  But I do have some work, or adjustments, cut out for me when in situations that are not comfortable for me.

As much as I can feel anxious over putting myself in uncomfortable situations, I constantly seek them.  Always have, always will.  Again, isn't that interesting?

I am a person who really needs and values my alone time.  I am good on my own.  I will choose it over being with people a majority of the time.  It never phased me when I have taken a trip back to NYC solo.  I enjoy it.  I prefer to explore the world alone.  Sometimes literally, and more often, in my own thoughts.

This time, what I'm learning is that I have grown quite accustomed to the partnership my life has been over the course of the last seven years.  I've almost reached the two week mark of being away from home which is the longest I've been away since I've been married and had pets.  I had to have a little talk with myself the last two days on how it doesn't mean weakness, it means support.

I miss the support of my husband, family, and animals around me.  Being suddenly removed from them is so weird.  Something vital is missing for me.  I have gotten used to being surrounded my by support system.

I guess what I've learned is I am capable of getting on without it, but I'd prefer to be in it with them.

I keep thinking of my sweetheart with everything I'm getting to see and do, almost through his eyes.  How much he'd enjoy it, what he'd think, what he'd say.  Not in a co-dependant way, but a loving way.  Wishing it for him almost more than myself.  That says a lot about our relationship.

I have never believed "absence makes the heart grow fonder".  I did, however believe "out of sight, out of mind".  Until now.  I like that I've learned a new lesson and my mind has been changed.  It means growth.  Willing to learn and change my opinion.  I know there are so many things I'll take from my stay here that I may not even fully realize into the far future.  What a gift.  WHAT A GIFT!

I've also been mulling over what a sense of home means.  If my sweetheart was here, would it feel like home? Is it the people that make the home or the place? I'm still thinking.

Another observation has been that all the people I do know be it on one end of the country or the other, are having the same struggles.  You go far away to learn again and again that we are all so much more similar than we think.  I have had similar conversations with friends regarding struggles in their lives in the last couple of weeks.  The same problems in totally different parts of the country.  I have overheard snippets of conversations from people I don't know that are universal no matter where you are.  "Things changed once I took control of my life".

It's been making me think about some of the reading I'd done a couple months ago on archetypes.  In Deepak Chopra's "Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles" you are guided through a meditation to find what archetypes you identify with.  I fall mostly into a long line of Athena's.  A warrior destined to always fight my way through.  "The protector of civilization with commitment to knowledge, wisdom, the arts, and scientific knowledge.  A true spiritual warrior dedicated to destroying any ignorance that impedes the expression of truth."  A bit of the Sage and the Cosmic Alchemist are in me, too.

I see what others who are very close to me are.  I find it fascinating that we (people) fall into one or some of these again and again and again.  Recycling.  I wonder what all the differences could possibly feel like going through life as an Aphrodite? A Dionysus?

We are all so different and so much the same.  Same themes.  Same stardust.  Same place.  Where we came from and where we're going to.  I find great comfort in that.  I find a sense of belonging in identifying mine.  Where I fall into the history of the world.  It explains myself to me.  Why I experience the concept of happiness the way I do.  Why I perceive the world and my existence as I do.

That the long line of other "me's" have been here far before me and will be here long after me.


"We're all just walking each other home"- Ram Dass

Thanks for reading...

Don't forget to scroll through the last few entries for more on my NYC stay!


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