I Just Turned 28 and I Wish it was 8. FML.

I love the open-ended possibilities with writing. People have told me there are rules but there really are no rules. I can do what I want. I could misspell words if I wanted to. Or use weird punctuation; I don’t care….do you care? Willitmakeyoumadifiwriteawholesentencewithoutanyspaces?canyouhandlethat? Now you are thinking —-> what the heck! Why would she do that? I don’t care.

If I really ask myself, I don’t care about anything really. We are all stardust contained in these strongly oblong-shaped meat packages hurling through space. We are forced to live within a cage that we spend our whole lives trying to learn how to make peace with, many of us never succeeding…or failing (suicide). Our humanity becomes too much to handle and we need to just.make.it.stop.please.

This is what I see. Happening all around me. It makes me sad.

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Tonight I had my first gathering at my new house. I felt a little bit adult. We had a little wine and snacks, gathering with the intention of picking a movie to watch but ended up enjoying the simplicity of good conversation sans phones or computers present. I had present people from acting class, a girl I work with and a couple from New Zealand whom I met at a previous job. It was a little bit of a post-birthday get together but not really because I didn't feel too enthusiastic about celebrating this year. Just felt...meh about it. While cleaning up (me doing dishes before going to bed...so weird) I caught my reflection in the window above the sink.

I look older. Something feels like it has changed recently. Getting older makes me sad. I want to do so many things in my life. I'm scared to get wrinkles on my face and to feel my body deteriorating from the inside out while my mind stays perfectly intact...or the other way around. I'm feeling myself growing up and I don't think I like it. I wish I knew what I know now, back when I was 19 and fresh out of high school. It's so fucking cliche I hate it.

I wish I could be a kid again. I miss the time when life was simple and carefree and joyous. Everything was new, there was a whole world right in my backyard for me to explore. I miss cuddling at night with my mother. I miss my father reading prayers to me before bed. I miss my mother singing me a lullaby. I miss not having to worry about money, or a career or making a fucking positive impact in the world. I miss feeling invincible...and playing hide-and-go-seek. I reflect on my life a lot. Where I've been, how much I've grown and overcome...where I want to see myself go...

I think about my grandmother and what she would have wished for me. Would she be proud of me?

I never knew my grandmother on my mother's side. She passed away when my mother was only 6. To be honest, I haven't thought about it much...only having one set of grandparents growing up (my mother's father passed a year later when she was 7). I'm starting to think about it more. What were their lives like?

On my mother's side of the family were artist, businessmen and intellectuals. On my father's, farmers, saints and soldiers. I have an eclectic lineage. Where will I end up? I feel the hope my family has for me. Many people who have come to America did so because they wanted to change their destiny. They left everything they knew, to come to a new place and make life better for their future generations. Did my great great grandmother fathom me? Did she ever wonder who I may be someday? Did she pray for me? I feel privileged for this level of intellect. A blessing and a curse it seems sometimes.

I yearn to talk about these things...to create art around these questions. I need more artist friends who can relate, collaborate and challenge. I will host more simple and sincere gatherings. A story night around the fire pit in the backyard, an improv acting games night, a music night, a game night. I think in many cases...we don't need therapy to deal with our depression and anxiety...we need family and community. We need love and support. We need connection.

I have a voice inside my brain now, everyday that says, "WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!". I can't allow it to persistently take up space in my brain. The only way to get it to shut up is to listen. My words and thoughts are meant for more than to be spoken once and then snuffed out.Fuck.

Sometimes the voice comes up when I'm driving, or when I'm half asleep in bed (that is the most annoying) so I've taken to pulling out my phone and using the voice recorder app to say what I would write. I find that still does the trick. I also know a good friend who recently wrote a few books and that is how she got them done, she spoke them and had someone else transcribe them. Maybe I will do this someday. I'm pretty sure one day I will publish a book.

Being an actor makes me think more in depth about life. In order to portray a character authentically you need to ask yourself many questions about their life. What has happened to them to make them who they are? How do they feel about the other characters? What motivates them...in life and in the scene? It is important to understand WHY you are doing everything in order to breathe life into the story written on the page. It has made me question my own life, delve deeper into who I am...what is my story? What have been my unconscious and conscious motivations in life?

My reflection in the window above the sink. I looked sad. I looked older. I don't like that I'm getting older. My birthday. I didn't feel so enthusiastic about it. I thought, life is hard...just everyday life sometimes is hard. It's hard to recognize that the ones you love will one day die. Everyday brings you closer to the dreaded end. It's hard to think about even in my short life, how much I have wanted so badly, that didn't work out...how I'm changing so drastically so quickly and I'm just trying to keep up. I don't know if I like how I'm changing. I think I actually do though...it's just hard. Can I just go back to how things were? When I was kind of bored and unhappy...but at least I was secure? (duh...of course I can't and even if I could, I wouldn't...it's just hard sometimes and the nostalgia for the idealized childhood and/or the recent, seemingly easier past kicks in)

I feel that and it makes me sad. I let myself cry and I understand that it is ok. There is nothing wrong with feeling so much. It actually is quite an asset for my chosen career path. Now, to figure out how I won't get chewed up and spit out and horribly jaded and hardened by the world before I can make good art. That is the question. Fuck. I'm still learning how to stay open to opportunity, to connection and to making good art...but also build up a thick skin to rejection and people who see me and instantly want to cut me down and general life woes (rent is due? what!?). Shit. How do people do this?! This is so hard on so many levels but I also can't imagine doing anything else. I'm literally just operating a day at a time...with a long term goal I'm working towards and hoping (praying) that by some miracle this all works out in my favor.

There is this prayer in the Sikh religion that is recited before bed. My parents would read it to me before bed when I was all tucked in with my stuffed blue bear. They would read it (my father in Punjabi and my mother with the English translation) with a low, calming cadence that would put me to sleep feeling loved and watched over.

"...Upon that cosmic plate of the sky, the sun and the moon are the lamps.

The stars and their orbs are the studded pearls.

The fragrance of sandalwood in the air is the temple incense, and the wind is the fan.

All the plants of the world are the altar flowers in offering to You, O Luminous Lord.

What a beautiful Aartee, lamp-lit worship service this is!

O Destroyer of Fear, this is Your Ceremony of Light.

The Unstruck Sound-current of the Shabad is the vibration of the temple drums.

You have thousands of eyes, and yet You have no eyes.

You have thousands of forms, and yet You do not have even one.

You have thousands of Lotus Feet, and yet You do not have even one foot.

You haveno nose, but you have thousands of noses.

This Play of Yours entrances me.

Amongst all is the Light-You are that Light.

By this Illumination, that Light is radiant within all..."

~ An excerpt from Kirtan Sohila (evening prayer from Sikh tradition)