A love note to my friends. Thank you.

I am sitting next to a window looking out over Queens, with a view of the Manhattan skyline peaking through the windows to my right, my best friend reading in her adjoining bedroom, and my dear friend and fellow auditioner-for-grad-schools on the couch next to an adorable purring kitten.  Our other kind and wonderful host is at an exclusive happy hour event at a place with a dress code, and just invited us out to a gourmet 24-hour diner a block away.  I’m not quite sure what life I am living right now, but I like it.  I swear to God this is really happening.

Five days before leaving the exquisite city of Portland, my roommate and I came home after a particularly rainy week to a flooded apartment.  So while salvaging my stuff and scrambling to move out before a month-long trip, I was also preparing for MFA Acting school auditions, rehearsing scenes for ACTF, opening and closing a staged reading, doing curtain speeches and pouring Ninkasi beer for Theatre Vertigo, wrapping up my temp job at Banfield, and trying not to lose my mind. Oh yeah, and picking up my poor roommate from the hospital when she unexpectedly broke her ankle.  

But now, tucked into a little oasis in Queens with wonderful people I love and nothing to do but the work I love best—act—for a month, I can’t help but feel like everything has happened exactly as it was supposed to. ...Except maybe for my dear roomie's ankle... :(  I have no job, no home, I’m unattached, and I now have nothing in my life but total freedom, big dreams, and incredible friends.  Friends who give me all the tequila I need and a place to crash when my apartment floods, friends who rally at the last minute to help me move and store my stuff when my landlord falls through, friends who welcome me with open arms and home-cooked meals when I fly across the country like a woman fleeing a burning building.  Friends who believe in me and support me no matter what.  Unlikely friends who make a “Flat Stanley” so I can take pictures with them in New York.  Oh yeah, and amazing parents who help me out in small, key ways from 400 miles away. 

This past week has been a beautiful reminder that every cloud truly does have a silver lining.  I lost a few things, but I was given a deep gratitude for the wonderful support network I have, and an absolutely clean and fresh start after six months of corporate drudgery and intense preparation for this next month of my life. 

I am brand new.  Ready to write the next chapter.