I Moved (Again)!

Originally posted July 27, 2020

The dust is still settling, but it happened. I moved. A week ago today, into a spacious room in a house with a backyard (and front yard) with my cousin and his dog, Bentley! Another big transition in a crazy year. It’s exciting when all your stuff actually fits in a space, it’s quite comforting actually. And since this is like, the 4th time I’ve moved since starting this blog a little over a year a go, maybe this should just be my moving blog at this point… Or maybe a big transitions blog!

Anyway, as you can imagine, this was a stranger move than usual. I was living in my parents house with both of my younger brothers for the longest time all together since high school. Leaving them was difficult and knowing that I’m moving my life in a very different direction than I expected to a year ago or even 5 years ago is difficult as well.

Plus, I’ve only ever driven 6 hours alone. I drove to see grandparents in Tennessee from college in Illinois often enough that the 6 hour drive felt easy. But, I really felt like that was my limit. I didn’t think I could do more than 6 hours. So, when planning for the 11 hour drive. I thought for sure I’d want help or to stop halfway. After the 6 hour drives I took in college I would be so tired and sometimes even need a nap before I could really function further in the day.

Another fear was the car… So, I sold my car to move to NYC. HAHA! Who knew I’d only be there less than a year and would need to move somewhere less urban and would need a car again, NOT ME! No one saw that one coming. Luckily, my dad had just gotten himself a new Jeep and kept his old car and was willing to let me use it during this time. Lucky me! Except I have a weird relationship with this car… This is the car that I got into a car accident in during high school and honestly I’ve felt weird about driving that car ever since. Mental obstacle number 2. Mental obstacle number 1 being the fact that I felt a lack of purpose in staying or leaving or really doing anything.

I ended up driving by myself. It was going to be too hard to bring someone along with me to send them back and it’s a very awkward time to just stop somewhere for the night… so I forged on! Alone, equipped with a large iced coffee and a playlist only half the length of the drive. The feel of the drive was different because as much as I was excited to move in and be near family, it was kind of otherwise… completely arbitrary? When you take the long drive to college or fly back to school or home there is usually a big event in store. Meeting new friends and starting school, a new job or something and as much as this is a new chapter, it’s not the next step toward the life I wanted.

But, something kind of magical happened with this drive. It went so smoothly. I never got tired. I had perfectly spaced out restroom/gas breaks at places that didn’t feel super gross and when I arrived, I even had energy to unpack some things and visit with my cousin before I ultimately crashed and slept a great night’s sleep.

This felt very beyond me. It didn’t really make sense according to my history but, it happened! I think even more beyond me was the fact that it seemed to be raining everywhere except for on me during the drive. I had gotten a few sprinkles on the road but nothing that would complicate driving or impair my vision. Then I finally was 10 minutes out feeling accomplished that I’d overcome my fear of the car, my fear of the drive, my fear of the lack of purpose for my great journey and then appeared a HUGE rainbow… on the right side of the road that followed me all the way to my new house. It felt like a promise. That I will make it. There will be purpose whether or not I find it.

I’d really been struggling with understanding what I was feeling about this move. I had kinda told myself to just go do something and figure it out as I go and shut down feeling too much about it. That’s kind of the opposite of how I dealt with my move out of NYC which any time someone even brought it up the month or so leading up to it just ended with me in tears. Which, if you know me, isn’t always detrimental, I process best through tears. I know that it’s hard for people to talk to a crying person but I like working through things while crying, it’s the only way I can handle my big feelings. Good and bad! I usually have a good post-move cry or big transition cry and if you haven’t had one, I highly recommend it. I remember when I got to college, I moved in earlier than almost everyone on my dorm floor because I was traveling from so far out of state they gave me a few days to move in before other people. I remember when my family drove off, I was so excited for the new adventure and to make new friends and there was so much excitement in store! I had worked so hard to finally start studying what I wanted and I took a shower in the gross, college community showers on my floor with no one around and just sobbed. And afterward, I felt brand new! I was sad my family left, sure, but I was overwhelmed with fear of the unknown and excitement for all of the things that were just ahead of me. I cried my first night in my NYC apartment as well! I had worked hard to get there, I couldn’t believe I was really there, I wanted to live my dreams so bad, I didn’t know the next steps, I was scared it would be hard and I wouldn’t like it and I was going to live a completely different lifestyle than I ever had before and I just cried. Those are big and often conflicting feelings and for me, I have to cry about them.

With this move to Tennessee, I’ve been struggling with what the feelings are to cry about. The last 5 months have been full of unknowns and a lot of just, waaaiiittingggg for “normal” to come back. “When am I going back to New York?” Was the question in my head for months. Then when my lease ended in June and I obviously wasn’t going to be going back I had to switch gears. What now? Why now? I’ve been living in the unknown for months now. It wasn’t an exciting build up to a move that was going to lead to more opportunity or obvious growth. It’s been hard to talk about because as much as everyone is wanting things back to normal… not everyone has lost so much.

I’m not the epitome of loss, don’t get me wrong! I’m grateful to have been home in Texas when things got crazy and to have already been done with school. But, I had just begun my independence post-grad trying to build momentum in my career… In my career that I can’t just “do from home.” In my career that requires personal interactions without face masks and sneeze guards and gloves and PPE… In my career that is halting… It’s not in the re-opening plans yet. And when people diminish that by asking if I’ve thought about doing XYZ, when they don’t know how unsafe that option is or how that pays or how that displaces me? Because they want to be helpful? When they have not had to move from their home, or lost their jobs or lose their career momentum… they just have a few new cleaning standards and social distancing requirements? (Which, are a difficult transition, I get it.) I don’t have any of that. When other people try to “fix it” for me, I just feel unheard.

Telling me this is a perfect time for me to go to grad school… you are diminishing my experience and my loss. Also, how is this a perfect time for school and when have I expressed an interest in grad school?

Listing off all the jobs that your friend’s cousin’s child is doing across the country performing for a small weekly stipend and doesn’t comply with the AEA standards for re-opening and how I could do “something like that” is diminishing my knowledge of the industry and my experience of loss during this time.

Asking what my “back-up plan” or new career ideas are is diminishing to my experience. I got a Bachelor’s degree for my career, I didn’t fail myself and have to do this. This is not a result of my own personal failure! I don’t need a “back-up.” I need space to process!

I know that these suggestions are from a place of love and wanting to help me… But it’s very difficult to hear someone tell you how to make it all better who has NO idea the loss you are experiencing.

I identify as an artist and a performer. It’s who I am. I have given up relationships and moved to places where I didn’t know a single soul so that I could be a performer. So, that I could be the story-teller that I am. It’s my being. And no one can take that away from me, but this pandemic has cut it pretty close. I don’t know many people who put their identity in being a doctor, lawyer or engineer even though those titles take up a big space. And those careers have always been top priority on the re-opening plan and most have stayed open through it all. Considered essential. The demand for art hasn’t changed during this pandemic. From artists and consumers alike. But it’s not possible for the arts to continue business as usual + a mask.

The compounding of people trying to fix it without listening to me finally made me do it. Cry. Sitting and eating pancakes with my grandmother and I just cried. I felt pretty silly but I realized that I have felt so unheard. Feeling unheard by the people who love me most, and want to “fix” my loss when they aren’t experiencing a ton of loss like this from the pandemic themselves. Unheard by people who were so hype to watch Hamilton on Disney+ but think that I shouldn’t have a problem with just finding a new career in the meantime.

A ton of loss is being ignored in this pandemic… loss of people due to COVID-19, black men and women due to police-brutality, loss of income, 13 million people starving due to civil war in Yemen, loss of careers and all of these losses are being screamed into an echo chamber of people who are only listening because it personally affects them. The people listening are also the people screaming. We are hearing ALL of it. We are hearing about all the loss but we are only listening to and confronting the loss that personally affects us. I know that’s what I’m doing. I feel like the people who are listening to me are the people in my industry and all we want is support from people on the outside. For other people to get it too. We don’t want people to say, “Well then, do what I’m doing instead and that will fix your problem!” We want some empathy. I want to be better, because I know that with so much loss right now, I feel unheard and I don’t want to make anyone feel the way people have made me feel about my loss. If my purpose for being in Tennessee right now is to just sit back and listen… then so be it.

I know I’ve spent the past year really hyper focused and this time to slow down is scary because it was forced upon us because of a virus. But this move has already been a good reminder to do the hard thing. Do it. It won’t be wrong and it will prove to be worth it. Slow down and listen. And don’t be afraid to cry.

XOXO,

Texas Jess