Year 3 Week 26-27: March 21-25; March 26-April 1, 2018

We've Finished Blocking!

Can you imagine? We've finished blocking Romeo and Juliet and we have more than a month to go before opening! This has never happened to me before! We've got so much time! I'm off-book already. I've filed my taxes. I've got time to breathe now. It's going to be great.

It's going to be great!

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

I don't think my family is going to be psyched that I've been working for the past three holy weeks that I've been in the United States. It's not as big of a deal in here as it is in the Philippines. I didn't even realize that it was holy week until my roommate told me he's gonna be gone for the weekend to spend Easter with his family. Religion is something that has largely been unquestioned for most of my journey in the Philippines. When I moved to New York City, there were no longer family members who could make me go to church on Sundays or practice any rituals from the Roman Catholic faith. As I proceed, I keep asking myself "why." Why should I go to church? Why should I fast? Why should I go to confession? Other than it's bad and I'll go to hell, or I'll lose points during Judgement Day, or because my family and my teachers have told me so? I have to find more compelling reasons than any of the above until I decide for myself what to do with my "religion."

NETFLIX: "LOVE"

After I completed the first seasons of Ugly Delicious, Queer Eye and The Imposters (this was over spring break), I started watching this Netflix series called "Love."

I was drawn to the series because it features Mickey, a woman in her early thirties with a drug, alcohol, sex/love addiction who was trying to get better. She's had a string of unhealthy relationships with men who weren't good for her until she meets Gus. Gus is a guy who doesn't fit into the mold of guys that Mickey has always dated, but Mickey opens up to him because she's at the point in her life where she realizes she deserves someone who is good to her. And I'm kind of in the same boat. Hey look, I don't have an "addiction." But I had a romantic history that compelled me to take a hiatus from any romantic engagements until I sorted out a couple of knots internally.

It's something that I've been thinking about because I'm almost done with my third year of training and I feel solid internally and emotionally after being single for almost four years now and have been in therapy for two and a half years, have learned to live on my own and take care of myself (in a foreign country!) and made healthy new friendships in a community where I feel loved and where I feel like I belong. So I think I'm in a pretty good place to start welcoming new energy in my life.

​Mickey: They say that you go back to painful situations because they’re comfortable and familiar.
Bertie: I hear that. Sometimes when I’m in pain, I’m like, “hello, old friend.”
Mickey: Yeah, I’m very comfortable with pain. It’s the happy part I’m not used to.
Bertie: Right, we need to get comfortable with the happy part. Definitely. Do you want the rest of this yogurt?
​- LOVE, Netflix