REGROUP AND UPGRADE YOU!
In my work with AT, I've noticed a few things.
Feelings are often epidemic ... Joy and sadness, both. When a few people feel it, suddenly almost everyone started to feel it.
There are certain times of the year — even days — when, like a contagion, everyone catches the same feels. Sometimes it's "something in the air," and sometimes it's clearly connected to rational circumstance.
The holidays, which are a time of celebration for so many, can actually be a little depressing for artists like us. Your cousins with their 9 to 5s finally get a break — they're thrilled. Your sister and her newborn are home to show off. You? Things haven't been great career-wise, and the last thing you want right now is time off. You're itching to get back to it!
And that's just it. Any "emptiness" (which I would separate from other kinds of depression, and would really separate from feelings of true sadness) is a result of losing that momentum we feel in this incredibly motivated, fast-paced city. Suddenly your life's treadmill goes from 6.5 to 2.3 and nobody told you.
There's maybe an ache, that says, I want to do, be, make, create.
Follow that instinct — especially with FIVE WEEKS left in 2018. What can you accomplish in this time? And with agencies taking a break in the middle of the month and auditions slowing down, this is the perfect time to regroup and upgrade YOU.
Your website; your headshot; your book (listen to 20 cast albums you've never heard); for a month become a "stan" of a new musical theatre composer you discover; change your diet; commit to 6x a week at the gym for five weeks; write a play (missed novel-writing November? A month is plenty of time to make a first draft); and so much more.
In 2016, I hadn't finished a musical that year. So you know what I did? I wrote a show called OTHERBODY, a 23 minute musical opera. Just to have something to show for myself for that year.
Come into 2019 feeling ACCOMPLISHED. No matter how the rest of the year panned out, it's never too late to get something awesome done.
RSO