Sunday, 8:47 PM. Text message.

“hi…we are watching show about Adele. do u like her? why is she so famous? love, dad.”

I’ve been feeling like a big bag of blah for the past few weeks, and I know I’m not the only one. In fact, I know that most of my friends are feeling the same way: unmotivated, out of control, and generally lost and confused about the future.

This is a little bit concerning. Why would we all be going through the same listless phase at the same time? It would be a lot easier if we could all kind of stagger feeling like this, that way whoever was feeling super awesome could pull everyone else into a better mood. When everyone you turn to is feeling the same way, though, it kind of just adds to the spiraling.

The other side of this story is maybe we can all just blame feeling this way on something bigger than us. Sure, maybe we’re all unsure of our jobs, our futures, our relationships and the world in general, but these aren’t new things. My circumstances haven’t changed at all since I started feeling all d-in-the-d’s. I’m still at the same job, I still want the same thing out of life. But now, instead of just kind of being funny with relatively little effort, I’m over-thinking everything I do and say and thus am not funny at all. While I was once a solid communicator who was confident in my writing abilities, I have recently been struggling to string words together for anything, including this very post. I don’t know what caused this shift, so I’m going to blame…

THE UNIVERSE.

Ah yes, the Universe. The great catch-all of blame and thanks. It may seem like a bit of a cop-out, but it’s the only way I can wrap my mind around the things that happen sometimes. That the majority of people I know are in the same mental funk at the same time is too much of a coincidence to not blame it on some energetic stagnation. I think that we all need some big, big shifts in energy to get everything moving again. Obviously, I can’t say what is going to cause this and frankly, it probably won’t be anything noticeable or something that we can pinpoint, but something will shift, eventually.

This is what I keep coming back to when I’m angry that I haven’t written or practiced guitar in what seems like forever: eventually, I’ll feel better and motivated and how and when this will happen is not something I need to worry about. All I need to worry about is focusing on the fact that at some point, the energy and flow of the world will start moving again. And when it does, we just all have to be ready to move out of this phase of whatevers and into a new and exciting time of progress, positivity, and hope about the future.

I’ve been going through a bit of what I believe is medically referred to as “The Blahs” lately, but I think I’ve just had a turning point.

Comedy nerds may know that this week was a good week for comedy in NYC. We had the 30 Rock live show, The Comedy Awards, and the Tribeca Film Festival is going on (not comedy-exclusive, but still), so I had a feeling that the ASSSSCAT show at UCB might be stacked. And OH MY GOD it was, most notably with Amy Poehler, Zack Woods, Jack McBrayer, Adam Pally, along with a bunch of other writer/performers who were just as awesome but who I don’t know by name.

Let me rephrase: Tonight, I was mere feet away from some of my comedy heroes. It was amazing, but not just because of the proximity alone. It was awesome because it was just a bare-bones, all improv performance, and everyone up there was just having a good time.

It was a reminder to me that these people that I want to be and work with some day are still just normal people who love comedy, performing, and laughing, and I’m remembering now that that is all I need to focus on. I don’t need to worry about if I’m funny enough, or if I’m getting my work into the hands of the right people at the right time. All I need to worry about is the basics: I love comedy and want to do comedy, so that is what I will do, no if’s, and’s or but’s (or butt’s). Sometimes that may mean that I am shooting a music video for a song parody about cats. Sometimes it may mean that I’m writing a sketch about a pigeon/squirrel West Side Story-style gang war in Washington Square Park. As long as I’m working towards what I love in every moment, then I’m on the right track.

My mom’s cat, Moose, is adorable and fluffy and always seems to be sitting in the same position.  I rarely see him moving from one place to another; he just seems to turn up, (“like the Travelocity Gnome!” as my Mom says), and then there he is. He’s never going, he’s never coming, he’s just there.

Moose is there on the deck.

Moose is there in a box (optional head tilt included).

Moose is there, looking at the great outdoors.

Moose is there and thinking about being there about 5 feet to his left.

“I want to be there outside, please.”

There with my mom.

Being there with his doppel ganger nephew, Goobert.

“I’m pretty sure it’s dinner time.”

“Oh, maybe you hadn’t heard but it’s dinner time.”

He’s there and he’s eco-conscious.

When my kitteh and I make the trek from NYC, he likes to practice being like his Uncle Moose. A rare action shot of Moose, but Goobert is there.

More practice.

I had an epiphany today.

Some background:

Since graduation last year I have been working freelance as a production assistant. I had a long gig that I really loved but which ended because New York has some pretty stringent labor laws about freelancers. As I re-embarked on the never-ending job search, I found myself feeling frustrated at what I was finding - nothing seemed like a good fit.  I was being recommended for jobs (for which I am very, very thankful!), but they were just not good matches for me.  Since my teenage years I’ve had a constant battle within myself between my creative side and my responsible side. A high school degree, five internships, three jobs and a bachelor’s degree and zero finished creative works later, it’s clear that the responsible side has always won out.

The problem is, I’m happiest when I’m indulging my creative side, naturally.  I’ve always told myself that my goal in life was to be happy, but it’s been shamefully easy to get caught up in the panic of choosing a career and finding some kind of “life partner” (The term boyfriend seems too specific).  I’ve been feeling that I suddenly don’t know what career on which I want to embark. This is not the first time this has happened to me, and each time I choose something new, I’m sure it’s what I want. First it was a lawyer, then a vet, then a music supervisor, then something in film. I think I’m getting closer, but I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to keep going down the freelance production route.  I really, really hate to admit it, but I thrive on routines and regularity (UGH!).

SO, I’ve decided to finally indulge my creative side, and it’s scary as hell.  A year out of college with professional experience and momentum in an industry, I am actively looking for server and hostess jobs.  Yes, I’m also looking for full-time “career” type jobs, but I’ve decided that I have to allow myself to let the job find me. 

The problem with this is I have a very persuasive side of me that tells me that I’m letting myself down and not fulfilling my potential. It’s yelling “YOU’RE BEING REALLY DUMB AND IRRESPONSIBLE! YOU’RE ONLY GETTING OLDER; YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE!” This side of me likes to frequently remind me of my fear that if I get a waitress job now, I’ll be a waitress for the rest of my life. That anything I want to do creatively can’t possibly sustain me in the future, so it’s just a waste of time. That I’ll never meet anyone worth knowing so I should just give up.

To the epiphany, which I guess is a bit of a grandiose description but whatever it was has me writing a blog entry after at least a year of nothing, so I’m going to go with it.

I did exactly four things today: job hunted, watched “The People’s Court,” recorded a guitar part for a new song, and babysat. Aside from watching “The People’s Court,” the best part of my day was recording that guitar part.  It was creating something that I was proud of, that I was excited about and wanted to share with people.  It made me happy.

As I was leaving for babysitting, my apartment covered in various cables that I hadn’t put away from recording, I thought to myself that I would be happy with my life if I could just find a job and a man.  And then I promptly realized that this was absolutely ridiculous, because what else am I going to do with my life I find the perfect job and the perfect relationship right now? I don’t want the purpose of my life to be about sitting contentedly with everything I have. If everything is “right,” then what inspiration will I have to create?  Most of the stories that I write are about women, my age, reaching a new level of understanding about what they want out of life and what they’re worth. How can I relate to stories like that if I’m not constantly on that journey myself?

I have to record this awakening to remind myself that there is no rush. A study came out recently that women start feeling old around 29. I’ve heard multiple friends discuss the fact that they think they’re getting wrinkles - we are all under 25.  Well, I kind of just want to say fuck that. Fuck that up the butt. I’m not buying it anymore. I’m young and I’ll be young for as long as I want to be. There’s absolutely no reason that I need to take on more worry and anxiety about not only doing something great, but doing something great before I get too old to do something great anymore.  I think, when I take the pressure off, that’s when the great stuff will really come. All I know is that I’ve had more creative inspiration in the past week than I have had probably since I used to get stoned on a regular basis - and that was all fake bullshit anyway, minus one amazing idea that I’m still pursuing.  It’s amazing to feel inspired while sober (not that drunk inspirations aren’t a major part of my life), so I think for now I’m just going to say screw five years from now. If I can still sustain myself and be following my crazy ideas five days from now, and five days after that and so on, then that needs to be enough.

Because there is nothing better on a Sunday than waking up at 1, watching the Red Sox win, and then knowing that you can go back and take a nap.