A Way Forward

For those of you wondering: is this going to be a personal blog now? Here’s the answer: No, note entirely. But also yes. Yes and.

In order to write about writing, theater, and the arts in general, I need to show where I’ve come from. The past couple years of my life have drastically changed me as a person (somehow simultaneously bringing me back to a more authentic self, more connected to who I was when I was growing up and also someone different – a little less afraid, a little stronger, a little more scarred and accepting of my scars.

I’ve changed greatly as a writer too – I used to have this sense of blockage that kept me from writing frequently. Post-heartbreak, post-world turned upside down, I don’t have this same struggle. Finding time to write is a continual issue but, after a lot of work soul-searching, and writing when I didn’t feel like it (especially when I didn’t feel like it), I have more ideas than I can handle. Not that I was short on ideas before but wasn’t like this. Have I exorcised what was blocking me or am I possessed by something new?

Everything in my writing goes back to current events and my personal philosophy that is growing and evolving with me as I evolve and grow. This is also why it’s important to know the background of where I’m coming from, why current politics have greatly effected my writing, and why it makes writing all the more important. Many of my friends who are artists and I sit around wondering how and what we create in a world where every day is like a fight to survive. The world has always been this way for many of us, of course, more so for some than others. It’s wound tighter now and it’s more visible than before and many of us who have privilege are experiencing this struggle for the first time. Some of us are more likely to take risks and say things we were afraid to say before – because if not now, when?

So – yes, this is a personal blog. This is a theater blog. This is a writing blog. This is a blog for me to rant and hope and fight for change. This is me to talk about fighting against mental health stigma, against ableism, against homophobia and biphobia and transphobia. This is a place to reckon with white privilege, to denounce racism and white supremacy, and to recognize how it continues to work on me – and resist it. This is a place to support femme and nonbinary voices, resist the patriarchy, and fight against toxic masculinity. These things have become clearer than ever for me and I expect they will become more clearly expressed on my blog. And so away we go.