It has been a very long time since my last post. And I have been through a very dark time emotionally. Not really sure why. I think that most of my dark times are just me being a poop. Lately I think that most of it has been me letting little things get me down. I decided to take the year off from acting, but then I get grumpy because I’m not doing a show. I don’t audition and don’t hear about upcoming shows, and then when I really start looking at it realistically, I couldn’t do those shows anyway because I am so fat and can’t hardly move. I’m not doing any exercising except jumping to conclusions and running different thoughts through my head. I see opportunities “pass me by” and wonder why these things happen. I haven’t been able to review many shows lately (probably a blessing for theaters around the state as my recent reviews have been lousy!) and I can’t seem to keep myself focused on anything. I have a script for a show that is quickly approaching it’s deadline and I still half of it to write! I spend most of my time trying to organize my thoughts and end up further down the rabbit hole than I was to begin with. I feel like I’m losing my grip on reality and my sanity, and know that my family is ready to give me the heave-ho.
Now, I don’t want to convey by all of that the impression that I am wallowing. I’m not. I just don’t know how to pull myself out of it. The script is coming along nicely (at least I think it is, since it is my first script and I don’t really know what I’m doing). And I’m directing another show for Christmas with a great cast that are doing everything that I want them to do, so the rehearsals seem to go too smoothly. Not sure if that is a sign that I’m good at what I do, or that I’m really bad at what I do and don’t know the difference. I spent the last three days in a blue funk because of a software glitch that locked my phone out of wifi at home. I finally woke up this morning and realized what a waste it was to get so upset over something that really didn’t matter. I now get to turn my worries over to the fact that I have a couple of months to really start working until I have to be in a show, in a dress and running around crowds of people. And if I don’t start getting myself into shape, I’m going to really start paying the price by losing what little stamina and mobility I have left. Kris has a new found motivation with a new calling she got as camp director. I have a lot of regrets at not doing anything since my hospital stay two years ago.
Too often I find myself just coasting. I don’t do anything that causes me any exertion. I can’t go on like this. I’ll never live to see my grandkids. I look at those old pictures of myself and want to curl into a ball and wait for the sweet embrace of death. (not really!, but kinda) My problem is that I just lack the will power. I have grown up feeling that I was destined for great things. I just failed to do anything about actually getting there because I was “destined” to be there. As a result, I don’t have a degree; I don’t have a real career; I don’t have any specific skills that can marketed or demonstrated in any real way. Everything that I use for my employment has been on-the-job training, and I have no way of demonstrating that I have those skills. I have no certifications or metrics to show that I can do the things that I do other than my word for it. Now, I ‘m not looking for a new job. I’m happy with what I’m doing. But at the same time, I don’t want to be a technical support phone rep when I’m 70! And as it sits now, I don’t really have any hope of advancement without a degree. I have investigated getting my degree, but with the way my mind has been acting lately, I can’t really get behind the idea of spending all that money on a class that I can’t concentrate on enough to pass. Plus I was an idiot before I dropped out of college and did a lot of different classes that really didn’t help my major any so when I go back, it’s going to be some hybrid degree that I would do just to get a degree, any degree. It certainly won’t be to get a degree that I will use in my chosen career or any career that I would choose. It’s kind of sad that I supposedly have all this talent but can’t seem to make it work for me in any demonstrable way.
I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I know that I was born with musical talent. Singing has always come naturally to me and I have always been very good at it. I know that my voice doesn’t appeal to everyone, but that’s okay. When I came home from my mission and went to the U I had every voice teacher trying to convince me to major in vocal performance. At the time, my thinking was that I knew I wanted a family and that I needed to provide for them, so a career that was so dependent on the whims of casting directors and travel was not what I wanted. I thought that a career teaching music would be more fulfilling. So, that is what I pursued. And it just so happens that as I got to the point that I would be entering the part of the major that would be taken through the Education department at the U, they started to have problems and almost lost their accreditation. The Music department scrambled to compensate and revamped the music education program. We had the opportunity to stay with the old program (that might go bust before we got through it) or go to the new program (that wasn’t fully formed yet but had more promise) and I went with the latter, where I proceeded to get lost in the shuffle until I finally came to the point that I had to make a decision: either keep working in a program where I am failing to achieve what I need to, or drop out and feed my family. Guess which side won!
So here I am, 20 years later, trying to figure out how to salvage the remains of my lengthy, but ultimately unsuccessful college career so that I have a hope of advancement in my defacto career. (And people tell me I don’t have an elegant ability to turn a phrase.) So this is all proceeding about in line with my goal to lose weight… It’s going nowhere. I have a wonderful wife and four fantastic kids that are my reasons for living. Yet I cannot seem to get it together and do the things that would mean the most for me and my family in getting me and them a better quality of life and a happy pappy. Maybe it’s just these damn blog posts that make me wallow in my own self-guilt and marinate in the stew of my own regrets.
Or maybe I just have a knack for writing over-wrought literary crap!
Quote of the day:
“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.” – Edward Bulwer-Lytton from Paul Clifford
“She wasn’t really my type, a hard-looking but untalented reporter from the local cat box liner, but the first second that the third-rate representative of the fourth estate cracked open a new fifth of old Scotch, my sixth sense said seventh heaven was as close as an eighth note from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, so, nervous as a tenth grader drowning in eleventh-hour cramming for a physics exam, I swept her into my longing arms, and, humming “The Twelfth of Never,” I got lucky on Friday the thirteenth.” — Wm. W. “Buddy” Ocheltree, Port Townsend, WA, 1993 winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
Hey, Fatso...! 
Rhonda Pettey Petersen
/ November 13, 2013Tony, I read your post and was heavy hearted. I know some of what you are feeling. I have been going through a little bit of the same struggle. Email me if you want to chat. rhondapetersen@outlook.com.
Rhonda from high school days.
Kara Black
/ November 14, 2013Is music teacher still in the realm of possibility for you? By now surely they have fixed the program and you could complete your training. With your credentials with Utah Opera that would certainly help you landing a job. Perhaps you should take a few private students and see if you like it and go back to your original career path. Many people change careers every 5-10 years – so you would even be trendy! Lots of Love, Kara Black.