Climbing up from the end of the rope

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. Money is non-existent. I mean, truly non-existent. I had to take home toilet paper from work the other day to make sure we had a roll at home. Once again, can’t pay my rent. Haven’t paid for Bette, my new convertible, and the woman who sold it to me is so tolerant. I owe the wonderful Beth money she lent me over the summer.

Drowning.

Drowning.

Drowning.

On top of that, I’ve lost two classes a week, cutting my income by $400 a month.

And my father has been given three to six months to live.

Fuck.

Hard not to throw in the towel. All I could think is that this is how soccer moms end up having sex in their SUV for money because it gets that bad, that tight.

All I could think is that I don’t want to work at Starbucks. I don’t want to work retail. I don’t want another pay-the-rent job. I want directing (or writing) to be my pay-the-rent job. But right now, it seems so incredibly far away.

Once again, I find myself thinking, I’m 47 years old. I should have a better handle on my shit than this. I hear the voices in my head screaming FAILURE!

I had some hard decisions to make today. I finally broke down and called our landlord, who had offered us another two bedroom apartment in the same complex but it’s $200 less a month, which means Monica can afford to pay half the rent, dropping my rent to $725 from $1,000. And I need it because I can’t sleep. I’m incredibly stressed because I’m so behind on bills and payments and everything else. Luckily, our landlord is amazing and gets it. So we’re moving by December 1.

FAILURE!

I should be able to pay my rent. I should be able to make money. I type 100 wpm. I have mad skills. But I want my days to allow me to direct, otherwise there’s no point.

I’m frustrated that I don’t have the life I want. I hate constantly facing choices that seem to want to pull me away from what I feel I am destined to do. Maybe it’s what is supposed to make me stronger and make sure I am doing what I want to do. Maybe it’s just the universe fucking with me. I don’t know.

And on top of all of that, the shoes are still on my floor because we had to extent filming another week. (FAILURE!) So Brad’s shoes are at the end of my bed, feeding the longing to have someone fill them. It seems so far away to me that I might find someone to leave his shoes at the end of my bed. And right now, I could use someone like that. Arms to hold me, whisper good things in my ear, all that stuff. Make me feel not so alone.

The one glowing light is that the “Mastermind” shoot is going really well. The crew is amazing. I have a DP who knows what he’s doing, who I don’t have to explain everything to. He just picks up the camera and shoots these amazing pictures. The handful of folks who have come out to help have great attitudes, great enthusiasm and great passion for what we’re doing.

And my actors. This is my greatest joy.

Beth. Girl crush.



She looks like a movie star in this film. Her eyes are exquisite and she just leaps off of the screen with her honesty and her soul on her face. She is beautiful, she is talented, she is gorgeous. The chicks are going to be lining up for her after this. On top of that, she brings a core and a groundedness to Liz that is incredible. I’m so glad we did the show over the summer and that she had the time to really grow this beautiful, complex, wonderful character.

And Brad. His heart in his wondrous eyes breaks my heart.



Takes my breath away. His JD is so complex, so complicated, yet so incredibly vulnerable and fragile. He’s taken what he brought to the stage and deepened it and make the character even better, if that was even possible. I can’t wait to see what he does with the supervillain, Mastermind, when we start to shoot that next week.

And Brad and Beth together are breathtaking.



Monica watched some of the footage tonight and it took her breath away. Which makes me happy because that’s what I wanted. I want to have your heart touched by these characters, including Mastermind, when we get there. I’m very happy with my vision and happy that it’s coming true right before my eyes. It’s what’s gotten me through the past couple of weeks of pain and torture and stress and anger. It’s what’s gotten me to keep hanging on to the hope that I am doing what I should be doing. It’s what’s stopped me from just throwing in the towel and giving up and finding a “real” job and just living.



And Brad’s shoes at the end of my bed.

I’m hanging on to the knot at the end of the rope, hoping that this change today will bring relief and release, letting me focus on getting my life back on track. Hoping this change will move the energy and help me to bring someone into my life who will not only leave his shoes at the end of my bed, but maybe leave a little piece of his heart behind with me whenever he is not present. Someone who will want to leave his shoes at the end of my bed and leave the pieces of his heart with me.

The Power of Shoes

There are men’s shoes sitting at the foot of the bed. That was enough to send me into a really weird place last night.

I was shooting a web series/short film in my apartment all day yesterday. It’s based on “Mastermind”, the one act play I directed over the summer that I absolutely fell in love with. The original actors are returning, the writer has given his blessing and I have a fantastic crew involved.

The shoot went great. Had some issues, which every shoot has, but nothing huge or panic-inducing. Just ordinary production crap.

At the end of the shoot, my lead actor, Brad, was packing up his stuff. He asked if he could leave his wardrobe here since we’ll be shooting again on Sunday and he thought it would be easier to leave it at my place than haul it back and forth. Made sense to me.

Everyone packed up and left. I crashed for a bit and took care of a few things before finally hauling my butt to bed.

As I was getting ready for bed, I tidied up the production stuff left in my bedroom, because we had been shooting in there the latter part of the day. Once everything was cleaned up, I was left with two pairs of men’s shoes at the foot of my bed.

That stopped me.

Men’s shoes. At the foot of my bed.

I miss that.

Men’s shoes.

I opened my closet to put something away and Brad’s wardrobe was hanging in there - a button down shirt, pair of pants, a thermal t-shirt. Men’s clothes. In my closet.

I miss that.

Doesn’t help that I adore Brad, as does everyone who knows him. He’s a wonderful guy and has the best, most amazing energy. But he has a girlfriend so I just am glad he’s a part of my life and that he’s become such a good friend.

But his shoes were at the end of my bed.

I sat on my bed for a long time, staring at those shoes.

Yeah, sure, in another world, I’d love to think that this incredible man would be the one to leave his shoes nightly at the foot of my bed but that’s not gonna happen. But it made me miss having someone leave their shoes at the foot of my bed on a regular basis.

I miss that masculine presence in my life. I have amazing men in my life like Brad and Kerr and Ranger Smith and many, many others. But I miss that specific presence, that specific man, who will leave his shoes at the foot of my bed.

And it made me wonder if there will be someone in my life to leave their shoes at the foot of my bed. Someone whose shirt will hang in my closet. Not someone just to date but someone to bring that masculine energy back into my life.

I think sometimes I manifest that energy and am maybe a little more aggressive than I need to be because I don’t have that outside source of masculinity in my life. I love my guy friends but there’s something about having that specific, intimate energy that I miss.

I finally put Brad’s shoes in the back of the closet where they will rest safely until they come out to film next week. I had initially just meant to leave them on the floor but I don’t think I could look at them every day between now and Sunday. So they and their energy can hibernate until they need to come out.

I look forward to the day when the shoes of someone I love can live on the floor beside my Chuck Taylors and my Santana boots. Hopefully, they will belong to someone as amazing as the men I have found special in my life over the last four and a half years of my life. They’d have to be to stand up to my shoes.

Darkest days

The darkest days are these ones, the ones where I think it was all my fault and I deserved the treatment I got. The days where I have to fight picking up the phone and calling him, being casual, saying, hey, let’s get together, let’s talk. The days where I want to beg him to take me back, for us to be us again.

The days when I think maybe I made up all the bad things. Where maybe his treatment of me wasn’t as bad as I make it out to be. The days where I wonder if I just blew things out of proportion and turned him into a monster so I wouldn’t have to take responsibility for the things I did wrong.

The days where I think that there is never going to be a day where I don’t think of him, where I don’t wonder if I should have stayed, if I should have tried harder, if I should have… fill in the blank.

The darkest days are the ones where I am just simply and totally alone. Where I think being with the man who tormented me and verbally abused me daily and who made me come so close to no longer being here would be preferable to being alone. The days where I’m ready to just give up everything I’ve worked so very hard for just to have someone’s arms wrapped around me, even if they’re his arms.

The darkest days are these - full of creativity and projects I love and friends I adore. But feeling empty and hollow and shallow without someone - without him.

Embracing my dark side

It all started about a week ago. Brad, one of my favorite men, was sitting on my couch, talking to me about the “Mastermind” shoot coming up, working on translating the character from stage to screen. The fireplace was lit, it was very quiet in the house and our conversation meandered from the shoot to just whatever it is that two friends sit and talk about. Brad has the most calming personality yet he’s not afraid to talk about whatever is on his mind -- or mine. And we talked long after we were done with business. When he left, I could feel the absence of him in my living room.

And it made me miss having someone to just sit with, to just talk with. Just be with. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s very cute.

But I realized that the main reason I was lonely was that I had spent the better part of my adult life having someone on the other end of the couch. Dysfunctional, abusive, angry, bitter person but still a person who I talked to, who talked and/or shouted back and who, on occasion, actually listened and talked and tried to share to the best his ability. You’d think that four and a half years later, I’d be used to a metaphorical empty couch by now. And I thought I was.

But -- and I know this is going to sound stalkerish and creepy -- after Brad left, I just kind of wanted to curl up in the space where he had sat and -- I don’t know what. Remind myself of having someone? This is not a man who is available and we have a great friendship and a great working relationship that I wouldn’t want to fuck up. But I was just feeling so lonely after he left, after he took his presence with him, that I felt the hollow he left behind.

That really sent me into a nosedive over the last week. Feeling so alone and lonely. Feeling so absent from parts of my life. Feeling so incredibly empty. I kept looking at the end of the couch, trying to imagine what it would be like to have someone sitting there and I just couldn’t see it. I couldn’t imagine someone sitting there. The couch was empty and it was going to remain empty for the foreseeable future.

And I kept thinking about my ex this week. Feeling like I wanted to go by and see him. For what reason, I don’t know. I just sold my wedding rings recently for a whopping $35 and maybe it was residual sentimentality. But I felt like there were things I wanted to say to him, although I didn’t know what. And I know I could never say the things I wanted to say to him and I know I wouldn’t hear the things I wanted to hear. So his presence has been maybe metaphorically sitting at the end of the couch, taunting me, fighting with the positive energy Brad left behind. Making me wonder if R should have been sitting there, not Brad.

And through the past couple of days, I’ve been sad and lonely and depressed but couldn’t figure out why or what caused it. Yeah, post-show blues always happens and “Gross Indecency” was so wildly successful and beyond what I had ever expected for it to be that a let down could be expected. And I’m between projects, which is never good. But we’re working on Mastermind and just started work on “The Jamb”, a world premiere play opening in January, which I am thrilled to be doing. So the blues weren’t making sense.

Until tonight.

As I was driving home from teaching, I was thinking still about the empty couch and the seemingly empty life I was feeling. And I started thinking about R and our life. I realized that, sometimes, I miss that life. When it was good, it was good. He could be sweet when he wanted. We shared a lot and we created a lot. And I learned a lot. I missed our old apartment - this incredible loft space that never quite felt like mine. I missed the comfort of the dysfunction because it was familiar and it was known to me. And it’s always easier to be with what you know. It’s less scary. It’s less frightening. It’s less everything.

And as I thought about that life, I started to get angry. By the time I sat down to write this, I can feel this anger growing. Not in a wild, out-of-control way, but just a deep, seething anger that I don’t ever allow myself to feel. Because I’m not supposed to be angry. I’ve never been allowed to be angry. My family, my exes never gave me permission. R would mock my anger. He would diminish my anger. He would walk away from my anger, leaving me feeling powerless and pathetic and stupid and wrong.

Well, I’m angry.

I’m angry that for sixteen years, he made me feel stupid and lazy and weak and untalented and defenseless and unloved.

I’m angry that he said he would never, ever, under any circumstances, ever, ever let me go. And he let me go two weeks after I said I needed some time. Two weeks. Sixteen years together. And it took him a whole two weeks to figure out that those sixteen years weren’t worth never, ever letting me go. I got whiplash from how quickly he let go.

I’m angry that in a year of counseling, he was never able to let down his guard and say anything honest and real. It was always my fault, never his fault. Even the counselor acknowledged that in one of our last sessions. He became Spock and refused to participate emotionally.

Yeah, I know he has issues and problems and a side to this as well. And I know his family is fucked up, particularly his bitch of a mother, who laid the bread crumbs for his to leave his never-ever-leave-you wife behind. But he never really, truly tried. Because he didn’t love me enough. Because he didn’t love us enough. Because he didn’t have the balls to face his faults and really, truly fix things. And that makes me particularly angry.

I’m angry because it cost us a life. A life that could have been great. A life that had potential and that should have led us to success and beauty and wonder and all the goals we ever had.

I’m angry because I am terrified to ever let anyone get that close to me again. He left his mark on me as deep and as dark and as permanent as he would have if he had cut me or beat me or broken something on me. The scars and the bruises and the breaks are just buried deep inside where they’re hard to see. And I don’t know if I can ever let anyone get close enough to see those scars, to try to heal them because I’m afraid that those bruises and breaks will only be the beginning of another set of injuries, another set of punishments, another set of batterings. And I know I won’t survive that.

I’m angry because he left me with an empty couch when he could have chosen to stick it out and be on the other end of it. I’m angry because, deep down inside, a part of me wants him to be the one on the other end of the couch because he is all I know. I’m angry because the size of the hollow on the couch is immeasurable and I don’t know that anyone will ever be able to fill it.

And I’m angry because my heart still breaks over him and over us and over the life that has been lost.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

Meandering thoughts

I’m restless and moody tonight. Wow, how unusual.

On one hand, I’ve had the most amazing couple of months of my life. “Gross Indecency, the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde” was hugely successful, critically, creatively and financially. I have never had such a successful piece and something that was so well-received across the board. I had an amazing cast who took my basic direction during our extremely limited rehearsal period and ran with it. So much of the credit for the success of the show lies with them because of what they added to what I saw in my head. I couldn’t be more proud of the work I have done.

It was amazing to sit back and see all the things I had envisioned with this show over the past six years actually come to fruition on stage. And Kerr Seth Lordygan, who played Oscar and who shepherded this show through Eclectic Company Theatre with me, was a great partner-in-crime and a great Oscar Wilde.

At the end of the show last weekend, I realized that I wasn’t as sad as I had expected to be. I expected to be overwhelmed and depressed and blue because that’s what always happened at the last theater company I worked at. With them, I never knew when I would get a chance to direct again and I wasn’t really treated with much respect when I did direct, despite doing excellent shows. I realized, as we closed the show, that I wasn’t as sad because I knew exactly what I was going to be directing in the next year. And the joy of that knowledge is that I get to work with the actors/friends/people I love and people I respect and who respect me right back.

Next up - filming “Mastermind”, the one act play I directed this summer. It’ll be a web series and it will star the feisty and talented Beth Ricketson and the brilliant Brad Wilcox. We’re in blocking rehearsal right now and plan to start shooting beginning of November. And then I am directing “The Jamb” by J. Stephen Brantely, a wonderful New York playwright, and will be starting rehearsals mid-November. Oh, and I get to play with Kerr again and Brad again and Kenlyn (who did “Flawless” for me last year). Yeah, sure, make me work with two of my favorite men/actors on earth as well as a very talented actress and throw in another cute, talented boy and my head just may explode.

There are other productions as well but more about that as they fall into place.

Creatively, couldn’t be happier. This is why I changed my life. To create. To do what I want and be able to own it without having to share obligatory credit that didn’t really exist. This show is mine - good, bad or ugly, it’s all mine.

But with all that success, I find myself feeling a bit hollow. I had a great cast to share this with and good friends as well. But I missing that one special person to share it with. Someone to have endless discussions about the trials and tribulations, about my fears and my happiness. That one person.

I drove tonight to have drinks with a couple of the folks from “Gross” and found myself almost not wanting to go because there would be no one there to hold my hand and be the other half of me. To be the one beaming at me and just being there for me.

And I realized that I’ve never really had that at all. R had moments early on but even then, most of his praise was qualified. He could never just say, what a great job. I’m so proud of you. In fact, I don’t think the words “I’m proud of you” ever came out of his mouth. Maybe “I’m proud of you but”. Always a qualifier.

My family is a laugh. I sent them the reviews of the show, foolishly thinking there would be a response from them. Crickets echoing in the distance was the response. Yeah, I’m important to them. Yeah, I matter.

And S. Well, we were so young and so… young. And I hadn’t really done anything to be proud of or to share with him at that point. But I wanted his praise and his approval and I’m not sure I ever got it. I don’t know what I wanted it for but I wanted it.

And now, I’m trying to find the pride and the approval within myself and I got a little closer to doing this on this project. And the fact that actors I adore like Kerr and Brad and Beth are lining up projects to do with me fills part of that hollow.

But I wonder if I gave up having another part of me so that I could have this part of me. Does having this creative life and this creative joy and this creative everything mean I have to sacrifice having someone to share my life with?

And I’m not sure I’m ever going to be ready to really, truly let someone in ever again. How do I trust again after two men who were supposed to be the loves of my life destroyed my life and left me to find my way alone? How do I trust again when the one man I thought was going to be the next person to share my life with has faded out of my life without a word, without an explanation, without anything, taking a huge piece of my heart with me. And the others who I’ve thought, maybe this one, maybe this one, have turned out to not be the one.

Maybe there is no “one” left. I’ve had two that were supposed to be it but weren’t. Maybe I’ve used all my cards and there are none left.

Four and a half years alone. Four and a half years of wildly creative life. Four and a half years without someone tearing me down and making me feel so much less than. Four and a half years without someone.

Not really looking for an answer tonight so don’t feel obligated to post platitudes. I know, I get it. “There’s someone out there,” “just put yourself out there”, “give yourself time”, “you’re not really looking,” yada, yada, yada. I know the Oprah/Dr. Laura/Dr. Phil self-help bullshit crap that I’m supposed to know. And I don’t need that right now. I think my heart is still trying to heal and trying to put all the pieces back together, despite a few pieces still being MIA. And platitudes and encouragements and self-help logic won’t help fill in those holes. I’m not sure what will. A rotating group of OOMA’s (Objects Of My Affection) is obviously not the answer.

Maybe there is no answer. Just more questions, more seeking, more bitching and moaning.

At least my cat loves me. Mostly.

Reflections of...

I saw someone in the mirror yesterday morning as I was getting ready for a very long day.

It was the woman I want to be.

She is strong, confident, with a quiet power that doesn’t need to shout out, “look at me! See how amazing I am! Acknowledge how amazing I am!” She doesn’t need that because she knows who she is and what she is capable of.

She is mature in the best way. Knows she doesn’t have to prove her maturity by meeting others’ expectations. Knows she shows her maturity by pursuing what she wants and accomplishing her goals without compromise. She has the kind of maturity that allows her to laugh outrageously and not be embarrassed about it and play rigorously, knowing it doesn’t make her any less mature.

She is on the verge of beauty. Not the kind of beauty bought in a department store or the kind of beauty that comes out of an expensive jar with an unpronounceable name. But the kind of beauty that comes from deep inside. It’s not the kind of beauty that can be taught or bought. It’s beauty that comes from knowing who you are, what you want and knowing that you’re on the path to achieving what you want. The beauty that comes from peace of mind, from confidence in self, from letting go of fear and embracing life.

She caught my eye in the mirror, looking elegant and strong, watching me back through the glass. Her eyes were full of the knowledge I seek and level with the confidence I fake. Her eyes studied me for a moment, like looking backwards at her own progression. Her eyes and mine are the same but I saw, in that moment, where I could be.

Then she slowly faded away and I was left there, staring at my own reflection. But, for a change, I wasn’t critical of what I saw looking back at me. I saw the potential for who I could be, if I just stay on my path, if I just keep doing what I love and keep true to myself. If I stop using everyone else’s yardstick to measure myself against and just trust in the sound of my own voice. If I just trust that woman in the mirror and follow her example. Eventually, that woman looking back at me will truly be my own reflection.

Becoming Susan

I was talking to someone last night after “Gross Indecency”, discussing my vision for the show and why I chose to stage it the way I did. All very positive, all very wonderful.

And she asked me a simple question, something about where I got my vision and how impressed she was at my commitment to my vision. And somehow, we it seemed appropriate to say that this was why I had changed my life just over four years ago, to be able to be true to my vision. And it hit me in that moment, this play is the culmination of why I changed my life.

I read this play probably six years ago, when I was just beginning to direct at the Ark. I immediately put it on my list of plays I wanted to direct eventually.

When I started working on “Lloyd’s Prayer” at the Ark (one of my favorite all time pieces I have ever done still to this day), I started aggressively pursuing “Gross Indecency”. The rights apparently were not available, although I’m not entirely sure how aggressively the rights were being pursued on my behalf. I saw this play in my head, one particular moment especially, and never quite let it go. I was a baby director back then, just really beginning to find my way as a creative entity. “Lloyd’s Prayer” was the first time I looked at what was happening on stage and thought, that’s because of me. I made that. It was also the first production that my ex was truly not a part of. He didn’t attend rehearsals, he wasn’t producing it with me. It was mine, all mine. And he hated every minute of it. For the first time, I didn’t really care.

We were in therapy then, trying to save our marriage. I told him in therapy that I just needed him to be by my side, to be able to say, yes, I think she’s great and she’s done a great job, without bringing himself into the equation, without any qualifiers as to what I had done, without making it about him. That’s all I asked. Be supportive. Be my husband. Don’t be an asshole.

Opening night of “Lloyd’s Prayer”, he sat in the audience and said nothing. After the show, he gave me perfunctory appreciation and then literally sat in the house during the after-party, not at my side, because he simply couldn’t just be my husband, couldn’t just be supportive and couldn’t just say, wow, you did a great job. Instead, Carlos, my lead actor, and Chairman, who was such a dear friend at the time, and Peter were the ones at my side, singing my praises, telling me what a great job I had done. The supposed partner in my life, the supposed person who was supposed to be my rock, my love, my life chose to sit this one out.

Since then, I have grown as a director. I have done things I am so very proud of - “Afterplay” was one of my favorite because of the opportunity to give Chairman a beautiful role he would normally not be offered and his performance still warms my heart; “The Change-Up” short film because it was my truest Tarantino moment as a director and it placed top 5 on Famecast.com and I got to go to Austin to represent it; “Juche Rules” which won last year’s USC MPW one act playwriting festival, such a triumph because this was the third one I had directed and the previous two should have won; and, capping it off, “Mastermind”, another one of those very special productions that touched me in ways I can’t even begin to describe and the sentimental favorite at Hurricane Season one act festival this year.

“Gross Indecency” is the capper of my growth as a director. I feel like I went from a toddler to maturity in a matter of four short years. I could have never directed “Gross” without doing “Lloyd’s” and “Afterplay” and even the god-awful “Godislav”, possibly my least favorite production ever. I learned so much from each of those shows that led me to be able to tackle this scary, challenging and very difficult show.

But the biggest element that has led me to this success is the lack of my ex in my life. His ability to diminish me, his ability to make me question everything I did and everything I thought robbed me of my ability to create without him. I thought I knew nothing. I thought I was an amateur, a hack and that I could never do anything without him there to tell me what to do and make sure I didn’t fuck anything up.

“Lloyd’s” showed me I could create without him. And I don’t think I’ve looked back since.

One of the things I wonder about and ponder on the dark days is the fact that I feel like I had to choose my creative life over having a personal life. I miss having that partner, as fucked up as our partnership was. I did learn a lot from him, despite his inability to let me fly on my own. I miss having someone to sit with and discuss my thoughts and my choices and my concerns and my fears. I think that’s why I enjoyed coffee with Justin so much a week or so ago. It felt like talking to someone close, having a partner to share my thoughts, my feelings with.

Sometimes, in those dark, cold, empty days, I wonder if I chose correctly. Should I have stayed in my abusive marriage, tried to fix it, tried to make him see how he was hurting me, try to find ways to cope and re-configure our relationship so that I could stay with him and still live the life I wanted to live? Should I have just sucked it up and stayed with him so I wouldn’t be alone, I wouldn’t be just existing from production to production with no one in my life in between? Should I have made it work so that I wouldn’t be alone for the rest of my life?

On the dark days, I think, yes, I should have. Having a great show doesn’t make up for more than four years of life alone every single night. Having a great show doesn’t make up for not having someone there opening night, kissing me and beaming at me. Yes, he could do that for me - usually when he could take credit for something on the show. But maybe that was worth the sacrifice, give up some of my credit and accolades to have someone there for me. Creative freedom for an empty life, what kind of a trade-off is that?

It’s the best kind of trade off. This whole process with “Gross Indecency”, from committing to some very controversial choices such as casting Kerr as Oscar Wilde to the way I’ve staged it and going without a curtain call, has been very scary. Kerr has been a great partner in producing this and a great friend along the way. He trusted me, he trusted my vision, he trusts that I know what I’m doing and just gets out of the way. He’s there when I need him and not there when I don’t. He treats me with respect and treats me like a professional, something I am really not used to.

When the reviews started coming out, it was weird to see my name and see praise for what I had done. And there was no voice telling me that they were wrong, that I had somehow still done a bad job. There was no one telling me that maybe I should really look at the critical reviews and learning from them, which I do anyway. There was no one there to make me feel bad about my success and trying to take away any joy that I was getting from this moment in time of success.

And last night, while talking to this woman, who said she just wanted to meet the person who had such an incredible vision for this show, I realized that that person was me.

This production is the culmination of the two sides of my life finally coming together. Yes, I’m alone and that’s not likely to change soon. I’m a powerful, creative, successful, determined woman, which is attractive to men from the outside but most men don’t want to live with that. And I don’t want to be with anybody who can’t handle my success and my creative life. So if that means I’m alone, then I’m alone.

And I realized last night, for the first time in just over four years, that alone is just fine for now. Because by being alone, I’ve been able to shape my vision, sharpen my creative teeth and learned to trust those voices in my head that are not clowns, but are the creative muses who live there, whispering to me in the best and worst nights.

So if the trade-off means that I don’t have a date Saturday night and that I sit at home and watch “Snatch” on my 52” TV by myself or with my roomie, but I get to create things I am truly proud of and truly own, whether it’s a film or a play or a painting, then that’s the trade-off I’ll take. My heart is lonely and still in pieces but at least there isn’t somebody trying to hack it apart every time it starts to come together. And I have to trust that when and if someone special comes into my life, they will fill out my life, not try to take it away from me. They will know who I am and that will be what attracts them and they will become a part of my life, not make me fit into theirs.

And if it means that I get to create these amazing shows like “Lloyd’s” and “Juche” and “Change-Up” and “Mastermind” and “Gross” and get to step back and be proud of what I do, then it is absolutely worth the empty, lonely nights without someone. The pleasure and the joy and the pure sense of worth that I get when I step back and watch something I’ve created come together so strongly, so perfectly, is worth every moment on the couch by myself.

And I realized that last night, in talking to this woman, that I wouldn’t be here if I had not chosen to leave my life behind to find my new one. This show is the last of things to come back into my life that I tried to do in my old life and now its fruition maybe marks the true beginning of my new life. All the old debts are paid, all the leftover remnants are gone. After this, it’s all new, it’s all fresh, it’s all pure.

And it’s all mine.