Minding the Gap: Part I

It took me two months to write my Whirled World series. And during that time, life went on. You know, like life tends to do.

I didn't want to interrupt the series with the present day (which is, now, the past). So I guess it's time to begin that process now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finding My Happiest Future


I flew down to Florida for a few days and moved in to my room. All by myself. And I realized that I'm not ready mentally to be where I am in my grad school career.

Brian came to visit me in Connecticut, and it was fantastic. I wish I'd written a post about it at the time. We did awesome things. Like seeing Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes in Promises, Promises. And rotating three different kinds of Frrrozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity3 with his friend Erika. So much fun.

It's rare in life to find people that you connect with on the level that I connect with Brian, and I feel lucky to have him in my life. It's strange to think of everything that happened between us in the past, because it has so little to do with our present. He's one of the best friends I've ever had, and I love him dearly.

My brother Peter came to Connecticut for a bit to hang out with the rest of us. I missed him. I miss him now, too. (Even though he sent me an e-mail recently telling me to tone down how much I write about Phil on Twitter and Facebook... But I guess that's just him trying to be a helpful brother.) It was nice to have my family in one place. There's a good chance that won't happen again until... next May, I think.

I got to meet my long-time internet friend Barry, which was fantastic. He's one of the closest friends I've had that I hadn't ever met. How close are we?
1. I've proposed to him. More than once.
2. After my first PG-13 rated encounter, I remember using Google Chat to ask Barry all sorts of incredibly graphic questions.

So really, it felt more like seeing a friend after a long time than it felt like we were meeting for the first time. We ate in Little Italy. I brought him to New York's TopShop (which is a British store) and we shopped. It was great.

I also visited with a couple of my former roommates who have since moved to NYC. I love them dearly and it was great to see them. I just wish they could be met with more success in the city than they're currently finding.

Phil and I started Skyping regularly as soon as I got home from London. Sometimes twice a day. I worked in the afternoons this summer, so we'd Skype around 12pm/5pm (our respective time zones) and 6pm/11pm. A couple of times, when I had work in the morning, we'd even do 7am/12pm. And it was lovely.

I mailed him the letter I had started writing on the plane. And a couple more letters after that. He seemed to genuinely appreciate them, despite his occasional difficulty in deciphering my handwriting.

One day (July 17th, if you need a mental timeline), Phil wrote me an e-mail. One of those things that I would post here in its entirety if I didn't think he'd hate that. He wrote about how just talking with me put his head at odds with his heart. He wrote that he had two voices in his head: one dreamt of a life with me, the other said to be realistic/cynical/pragmatic and not get in too deep. He wrote that he was scared that he's going to screw things up. He wrote that he was seriously considering coming to visit me in Florida in October, if his work schedule allowed.

And he wrote:

I am thinking about the future we could have. it is scaring me. and it is exciting me.

I just wanted to tell you these things. I hope that's ok.

you are in my thoughts. constantly.

xxx

I won't lie: I cried.

I don't know what happened that turned me into a wet, weepy, blubbery, stereotypical mess of a female... But I am one. I would blame it on being an actor (which, actually, is a darn good reason), but that's not it.

I'm not always a mess. It comes and goes. I cried a lot with Brian (both while we were dating, and in the aftermath of our break-up). But I didn't cry with the Filmmaker. I remember crying when my casting for 2nd-year sucked. I remember crying when I was freaking out about whether I'd get cast in any decent roles this season (which, by the way, I did). I cried when my classmate was getting kicked out of my program.

And now, with Phil... I cry. I cried with him a couple of days after I met him. I cried when I saw him after two weeks. I've cried at so many good things with him. And I've cried at a couple of rough ones. I cry because I break with concepts, and atmospheres, and emotions that I am ill-equipped to handle.

In this particular instance, I the tears were based in that sense of being overwhelmed. After only about 6 weeks of knowing him (and the majority of that time being spent in different countries), he was thinking about a future. And I... wasn't. Not yet.

He's not the first guy who has thought about a future with me while I'm still most definitely focused on the present. The Filmmaker was the same way.

But I wasn't pushed into my tear-laden oblivion because he was pushing me towards a future I wasn't prepared to deal with. Well, at least, that wasn't the only reason. It had more to do with the fact that he wanted me enough to dare to think of me in that light. In that "forever" way. Not that he was signing on for that with that e-mail (far from it; he seemed frightened of his own thoughts and words)... But even that the thought had crossed his mind seemed... touching.

I've talked myself into and out of wanting many things in my life. I've talked myself out of wanting children when I thought I might not be able to have them. I talked myself out of wanting romance because I didn't have the opportunity to date until I was 20. And I had talked myself out of the idea of marriage, because I thought there was no way I could have it.

I don't know where my crazy actor life is going to take me. And, to be honest, there are days when the idea of trying to pursue acting as a profession terrifies me. I don't know how/if this is going to work. But I know for certain that if I were to get married and stop being an actor (in favor of a career where I could live in a single city and have a steady paycheck), I would regret it. And I would end up resenting the person I married. And I would most certainly blame any children I had for my lack of success in life. Yes, deservedly or not, I would blame them. And I know that makes me less than perfect, and probably not the greatest candidate for parenthood.

I wrote him back. I thanked him for the email, and for allowing me to see that he was vulnerable. Most of what I wrote was incoherent babble, looking back at it now. But here's one part:

Being with you is the easy part. And I think that's as it should be. (If being away from you and pining after you were favorable to being with you, then I think we'd be stock characters from Commedia Dell'Arte... but that's another story.)

I don't remember when I did this next part...

I wrote him a letter back. Daydreaming about moving to London.

And he Skyped me as soon as he'd read it, all excited. He wanted to know how serious I'd been.

(To be honest, not all that serious. And I couldn't really remember what I'd written. It must've been one of those random things that I did at 2am when I couldn't sleep.)

But I started thinking about my post-grad-school plans (of which, I had none).

And that's when I began to consider becoming an ex-pat.

He, of course, was hugely supportive of the idea.

But I insisted that I would not (WOULD NOT) move for him. If I were going to move, it would be because it was the best possible choice for me. For my life. For my career. For my happiness.

I made a long list of all of my possible futures. Some of them realistic. Some fanciful. Some absolutely preposterous. They included:

- Move back to Chicago
- Move in with parents in Connecticut as a pit-stop on my way to NYC
- Move directly to NYC
- Move to L.A.
- Stay in Florida.
- Get an offer from my theatre to do a year contract (which is pretty darn unlikely, let me tell you)
- Get an offer from some other random theatre (that I have not yet auditioned for) to be in their summer stock/show/season/company and move wherever that might take me.
- Try to get hired by The Guthrie, The Old Globe, or somewhere else that does mostly classics.
- Move to London

(Not a comprehensive list, but the other options were so out in left field that I can't even remember them now.)

This got narrowed down to four "real" options.

- Chicago
- New York
- Los Angeles
- London

There are major pros and cons to each, of course.

Ranking by feasibility:
1. New York (my parents are close, I know tons of people there... It's easy.)
2. Chicago (I've lived there before. I know the lay of the land. It's the cheapest major city in the world to live in. Piece of cake to go back there.)
3. Los Angeles (I've never even BEEN there. I don't know what's going on there. I know few people there. It's a different world to me.)
4. London (Major legal issues. Visas? Citizenship? And how the heck could I possibly afford it?)


Ranking by desirability:
1. London (I love it there. I've never felt more at peace with myself. I've never been happier in my surroundings.)
2. Chicago (I still think of it as home. And I do have lots of connections there.)
3. Los Angeles (There's something exciting about it.)
4. New York (It just feels wrong. I don't think I'm meant to be there. And everyone I know who is there is struggling, broke, and miserable.)


Ranking by career prospects:
1. Los Angeles (so much more work being done there than anywhere else. Literally more than 4x as many roles being cast for in London than NYC)
2. London (Here, I'm just another 20-something white girl. There, I'm an American, with a built in natural dialect. This makes me a minority, a commodity, and a specialist. And right now, there's a HUGE resurgence of classic American theatre across the pond. During the 6 weeks I was in London, there were 2 Arthur Miller plays, 2 Tennessee Williams play, and 1 Eugene O'Neill play being performed. Additionally, I saw productions of Enron, Eurydice, and Hair that were fully American dialects. And Legally Blonde, Sister Act, Jersey Boys, and the like are all hits over there as well.)
3. New York (I know some very talented people living there, and they're not having any luck.)
4. Chicago (It's just not as good of a place to be in for an Equity actor -- which I'll be when I graduate.)


After I ran all that information through my brain (and more that I haven't bothered to type, being the incessant over-thinker that I am), I decided that it's okay to have lofty goals.

I thought about all the times in my life that I've really taken steps forward in my life, and all of them seemed like times when I was thrown into something new and foreign. I went to a college where I knew no one. I moved to Chicago on two weeks notice, only knowing one of my roommates, not having a job, and having no other friends in the city. I came to grad school not knowing a soul in all of Florida.

Chicago and New York are places where I have friends. I have connections. I have networks. But I think that would make me complacent more than it would help me.

So my list started looking like this:
1. London
2. Los Angeles
3. Chicago
4. New York

Ultimately, even though it's a super-safe, easy route to go, my heart does not want to end up in New York. So I decided to take it off the list. For the moment, at least.

Then I realized that, as much as I love Chicago, something about going back there doesn't feel right. It feels like regression.

So my list became:
1. London
2. Los Angeles
3. Chicago
4. New York


And really, putting London next to Los Angeles, there's just no comparison.

London is easily my happiest potential future.

(And that math had nothing to do with Phil.)


Now, of course, Phil is a writer. And his career could take him to several places. But his list of his possible futures (at the time) was looking like this:
1. Los Angeles
2. London
3. New York

Wouldn't it be just my luck to try to move to London at the same time that Phil was trying to move to the USA?

"But this isn't about Phil," I thought. "This is about me."

I told Phil. He was, in his own words, "chuffed". (It's a positive thing.) I informed him that I would NOT be moving for him. And that even if I could get visas and whatnot in order, it was NOT a guarantee that I would move. I was merely keeping as many doors open to opportunity as possible. He said he understood. Moreover, he said that he would be disappointed in me if he thought I were moving for him. It was lovely. :)

So I started researching. Visas. Internships. Citizenship. I tried to wrap my brain around it, but it's all insane. I started looking into jobs that I could apply for that might get me a work visa. And internships that I can get within a year of graduating that would get me a student internship visa.

And then my dad had a brilliant idea...

My father's parents came over to the USA about a year before my dad was born. And they didn't become US citizens until he was 5. Which means, when he was born, they were still most likely citizens of a country that is now part of the European Union. And therefore, my dad probably qualifies for dual-citizenship. And if my dad becomes a dual-citizen, then I can become a dual-citizen.

You might be asking, "Wait, why does it help her to be an EU citizen?"

Because, my dear friends: the UK is part of the European Union. They don't use the Euro, but it doesn't matter. If you are a citizen of any country in the EU, then you can live and work in the UK without a visa.

In other words: jackpot.

Here's the problem: My father's parents weren't born in a country. They were born in an area that wouldn't become Yugoslavia until several years later. My grandfather's family moved to Germany sometime in the 1940s. I know that my grandmother was hiding out in Vienna, Austria in World War II. But we didn't know if they were German citizens or Austrian citizens. Or neither. And, additionally, historical documents in Germany and Austria right after WWII aren't exactly well-recorded.

My dad started researching that.

And then, on a whim, I started looking into the other side of my family.

All four of my mother's grandparents were born in Italy, and then came to the USA. As it turns out, this means that I am qualified for dual-citizenship with Italy. Unfortunately, it's really difficult. I'd have to acquire 14 different legal documents as proof of this. Some of them (like my birth certificate) are easy to come by. Others (like my great-grandfather and great-grandmother's marriage certificate) will be tough to track down. Obtaining them would cost several hundreds of dollars, and will most likely take about a year.

Still, it's a pretty darn good back-up plan.

So the wheels started rolling. London became more than a dream. It became a serious possibility.


To be continued...


May you find your happiest future,

~A~