Raining Days

Raining days are meant for hibernating and wallowing and comfort food and cuddles on the sofa and dreaming of somewhere, something else. Raining days are not designed for missions and new starts and action and health kicks.

So what a great excuse to do nothing. Not a thing about my head shots. Not a thing about both my acting and work CV's. Nothing about a website. Nothing. Except dreaming. So whilst the dog I am looking after squeaks at dogs on the TV I am holed up in the conservatory listening to the rain and Ludovico Einaudi (is there any point in listening to anything other than Piano and Strings in rain?) and talking to you fine people.

Summer seems to be gone already and in just under a month I must leave this period of quiet and relaxation for the city and hard work and I know when I get there I will find the energy I need. But from one penniless, graduated acting clown to the neverland that is the world wide web, let me confess, this does not excite me. I don't want to do it all again. And I'm not doing it all again. I never really did it. But it seems so exhausting, this constant sales job. I can't ever concentrate on just one thing either, I think about acting work and networking and CV's and show reels and all the admin getting a job entails and then I'm distracted because I can't concentrate on or do anything about that without MONEY. So then I think about what work I can do to pay the rent that will allow time and not leave me feeling exhausted, depressed, unfulfilled.

Let's back track to previous posts in which we have learnt the easiest way to be happy is to live in the here and now, the day to day. How does a creative person actually do this? In order to succeed, we must be obsessed with and by our goal, to obtain actual paid work. Which means thinking ahead, always. Thinking ahead reminds you that you are not where you want to be and forces you to feel miserable being here now. So the real task is to find out how to enjoy the process. Any ideas?

Finishing drama school seems to have left me feeling more lost and hopeless than ever before. It seems a never ending fight with my own fatigue at the constant fight pushing this dream forward requires. I've found myself even worrying about acting, for the first time ever. What if I don't know what to do when I get a script in my hands? The truth is I know what to do. I'm good at what I do. But I keep getting these fears as I'm out driving or doing something totally unrelated that when push comes to shove I won't be able to do it, and I'll be as unwatchable as the seemingly watchable Eastenders actors that keep making me want to cry tears of frustration whenever my Mum has it on. How can these people be paid when I know a mountain of bloody brilliant actors who are breaking their backs doing crap jobs and unpaid Theatre? Who don't have Botox freezing their foreheads. Yet.

I've come to terms with the fact that this is a lonely lifestyle. Very few people can understand it and those that do are battling their own way through. Relationships are impossible. Who in their right mind would want to be with someone whose life is so up and down and unstable? Right now I'm stuck but next month I could be touring some dead end place or jetting off to clown school on an adventure close to Lucifer's descent into hell. And self involved and emotional with it. And then if it's a fellow actor or director going through their own version of this, which one stays sane? It's impossible. Actors are for the solo life. There are no ready made people willing to deal with the lifestyle of someone so foolish.

And to be fair, that doesn't even bother me much. The realisation of that fact bothers me way more than the reality of it. Because I don't need anyone. I never have. I've loved, I've enjoyed someone but I don't need someone. I can afford to be picky and choosy because I simply wouldn't settle for anyone other than a person who wants this adventure with me and wants to take me on an adventure. But I don't believe they exist.

So why all morose Hannah? It's raining. And I keep watching love films. I'm still disappointed that my last relationship didn't work. Truth be told. It was the only time I'd cared enough to want something to work. Even believed it would, on some level, underneath all the factors that were screaming to me that it wasn't. Soon I will be moving back to where my memories are and I don't want to face them. First time in my life that I've been very conscious of my need to run. I used to think I stood up to things and faced them. I don't, I replace them with new dreams. So now that London has been sullied, the rest of the World seems far more attractive. Even after the pain and hardship of Paris. But that was Paris. I can feel my brain working at overload to work out how to get out of moving back to London without choosing career suicide. Because despite my fatigue and sullenness and seeming lack of motivation, in spite of all of this I have never been more determined that I am going to get what I want. I can see it, clear as day. I'm slowly beginning to take control of other things, like making my own clothes, project 1, sew a lining in a Vintage dress in time for a wedding in three weeks, with my new sewing machine, curtesy of my Nan. Project 2, cooking all the things I can't afford to eat in fancy restaurants. Project 3, getting fit enough that next summer I don't need to get depressed about how the cost of travel stops me taking even a camping holiday here, I am going to cycle. Project 4, get the hell out of here. That one's trickier, I have no plan. No start for finding a plan, just a desperate plea into the atmosphere that I won't have to go back to something that didn't go as I planned and can instead pretend that I was meant to do something else all along. And I'm finally recognising that I always do this. Run.

Who knew?

Well, probably most everyone else. Seen as I have a desire to escape my life and delve into someone else's entirely, time and time again. I'm a bloody actor. And writer. What are those two things if they are not escapism?

And yet, here I am talking to myself, about myself. Someone give me a script and a director. Please? And a plane ticket...anywhere. Even my growing obsession with Air crash investigation is not putting me off.

Wow, an actual post related to the point of the blog. Which is supposed to be about actor training and then I guess post that, actor struggling to get anywhere. But this is not near as funny as writing about other stuff. Oh and an image of Jared Leto pops into my head and it all feels better...how do I get work opposite him? Universe?