I‘ve Got A Good Life…and…

I’ve got a good life.
I really do.

It’s taken me almost 55 years to begin to believe that when my life is good, it won’t burn up like the paper on a cigarette when you light it and take a drag…or that the other shoe won’t drop.

Yes, I still miss smoking almost 25 years later…I don’t do it…but sometimes, yes, GOD I miss it AND I love shoes…except when they drop.

I don’t write on here a lot anymore.
It’s strange, now that I write as part of my living I use my creative time for that and when I’m done I like to drop back into a life that’s not about navel gazing or making something up that was not there in the first place, if possible.
I still love writing, don’t get me wrong at all…but it’s changed a bit.

A few weeks ago, as I reveled AGAIN in the fact that am in the third year of earning money for my writing…oh…

SIDEBAR: The first year I did my taxes alone, it was terrible. Just the fucking pits. Stay with me, this will make sense. As I sorted through my receipts, I kept finding ones from my husband’s affair mixed in with my receipts. Terrible and so angry making. Just level 100 out of 5 angry making. And there was nothing I could do about it BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO FUCKING DO YOUR TAXES. I just kept finding them and then looking madly over at my sister…who was helping me with my taxes…and she would look madly back, saying, “Well at least this won’t happen again!!!”…which was a bit of a non sequitur that still seemed to make sense at the time and we would just keep counting. THEN I found a receipt with the woman’s actual name on it IN MY FUCKING RECEIPTS…jesus wept…and had to take a knee…yes…it was fucking terrible. BUT the point of this sidebar was that after all was tallied, I went to Warren, my long suffering accountant, who…knowing the lay of the land as all accountants do…asked me how I was. I lied and said I was fine, of course. He asked me how my writing was going and then, in his best dad voice he said, “You know Sharron, my steadiest earners are writers. Just so you know.” And I went home and immediately made a plan to do my very best to write for a living.
So, thank you Warren.
True fucking story.
END OF SIDEBAR.

…so a few weeks ago, as I walked away from the Roy Thomson Hall where I’d JUST had the EXTREME pleasure of listening to a script I’d written being successfully played out on the stage in front of the TSO, I had a thought.

A thought that stopped in my tracks.

What if I stop loving writing?

I cannot stop enjoying the process of writing.
I just cannot.

Touring my cabarets alone for years (mostly with a wonderful player, but I had to remain quiet and rest between shows…one person shows can be a lonely business), alongside my many years in musical theatre (just because you’re good at something does not mean your are supposed to keep doing it), kinda beat the love of singing out of me.

As I stood there in the cold, out front of the Roy Thomson Hall, my backpack heavy with my computer on the way to the celebratory party, it felt very good to be aware of it.
To know that I’m grown, deep in the process of healing lifelong wounds, aware and alive, and not just floating through my life, but in charge…knowing that it’s something I can keep an eye on.
I have the power. : )
To always know that I have the power to work towards still loving the process of creating something that was not there before.

What a gift.

My life has changed so much in the last five years…and I’m not mad at it.

I am fucking delightful work in powerful progress.

The process to get here was fucked in the beginning, to say the very least…but after a lifetime of waiting for the other shoe to drop…and having it drop more that a few times AND take out some floor boards on it’s way to a basement below me…here I am.

I’ve got a good life.
I really do.

Complicated and simple at the very same time.

Still challenging and evolving.

Last year, I really made a plan on what I would like the rest of my life to look like…and I’m quietly working away on it…and it’s in motion…but I learned to be quiet about it.
THAT’S one of the best lessons I’ve learned in my lifetime, so far.

Also to stay open.

ALSO also to know your bounce back but honour your wounds.

Take your life and make it art.

Trite but true.

S.M.
April 23rd, 2023
Toronto, Ontario