On July 8, 2020, I was supposed to read in the first online edition of the Brockton Writers Series. This was a huge deal to me and an incredible honour to have been chosen. I was incredibly anxious in the days leading up to the reading. A few hours before, my chronic illness reared its ugly head and reminded me that it is in charge, despite my best efforts, and sent me to bed instead of a Zoom stage.
A few days prior, I watched Hamilton with my family. As I lay in bed, sick as a dog, I kept thinking of the song, My Shot, which goes, “I’m not throwing away my shot…” – except in my head, my words repeating as if on a loop were, “I am throwing away my shot.” I was devastated and remained so for days afterward.
The thing is that, as with most things in life, there is little sense in brooding about missed chances especially while there are so many other opportunities. Tomorrow night I’m performing in a staged reading of Cloud Nine with Alumnae Theatre. I’m arranging rehearsals for Introducing My Crazy in the Northumberland Players Shorts Festival. And just this afternoon, I got an email advising that my short play, It’s Friday at the beginning of June, in the year 2020, was accepted to StageWrite Burlington’s Virtually Yours 3.0.
So I could continue to beat myself up about something I cannot change or I can choose to move on and focus my energies on my current projects. I choose the latter.
