Put Something in the World

I was wondering why I felt like crawling into bed for the afternoon when my to-do list is roughly 17 miles long. Perhaps it was the sporadic downpours, the spontaneous claps of clamoring thunder, the curly topped toddler quietly watching a show next to me because his nap was less than stellar. Maybe I'm starting to get sick? I thought. And I suppose it could be so--that place between well and sick, that time you look back on and say, "Oh, yeah. That's when I started to feel this coming on."

I'm pretty sure it isn't that.

I'm pretty sure I'm suffering from PTSD (Post Theatrical Sadness Disorder). This is directly caused by the extremely high high that I feel before, during, and just after a theatrical experience--even one that I am not particularly impressed with. There's only one way to go from that mountaintop and it's straight down.

Inevitably, I start to feel like, "What have I done with these 37 years? What have I done with my $80,000 degree? Where do I go from here?"

And it isn't that I instantly feel the need to be on Broadway. I don't. I'm under no real delusion that the talent level needed for that lies within me. I don't even instantly feel the need to be part of the theatre at all. It's just that I instantly remember that I am made to create.

Words. Characters. Something. I'm made to put something in the world that hasn't been there before. For a minute or two, the head-in-the-clouds artist in me sighs a sigh of contentment that today will be the day I start my book which would be something like The Greatest Story Never Told and would probably shock just about everyone. Or today will be the day I memorize a monologue and audition for something again--finally. Or today will be the day I write a Bible study or burst with some great magnitude of creativity.

But then I look at the house that needs cleaning, the toddler who needs chasing at least 12 hours of every day, the classes that need teaching, the dinners that need making, the life that needs living. Suddenly, I feel it in the nerves that somehow seem to vibrate as they realize, There will be no time to create today.

I fell in love early with art--with both the written and performed word. I was little when the magic of a play first bit me. It bit hard. I couldn't shake it loose and I didn't want to. Performance art held one heel and literature, the other. College both nurtured this love and broke it.

I am a perfectionist. I always have been. Even from the time I was a tiny child, I wanted to be perfect. And if I couldn't be perfect, why would I do it at all? I could work hard enough to be at the top--or at least very close to the top in whatever I set my mind to. Because of this perfectionist trait, my parents rarely had to get on my case. I was already on it enough for the three of us. I don't need a lot of constructive criticism because I've likely already thought of it all. And I will take zero feedback to mean that you believe I'm failing in all the ways I've already thought up.

So, in college, I was told over and over again by writing professors that I showed great promise. But all it took was one professor, in an unrelated field, saying one thing and I suddenly didn't believe that I could write. I'm also convinced that this person didn't think I could act, either. He did think I could produce and direct and manage and, now, I wish he'd at least focused on that. Because, yes, that probably could have gone somewhere. Instead, I left college thankful that I'd found the love of my life and could stop pretending that I was any good at writing or acting. I could get married and teach.

You see, I'm very good at choosing one opinion that matters to me and betting the whole farm on what that one person thinks. I look back now, nearly two decades later, and I know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that I chose the wrong person's opinion. That's the thing about it though. I can know, even now, that I'm choosing the wrong person's opinion and still find myself unable to shake the words and actions of that one person. Why? Because I am a perfectionist and I want EVERYONE to think I'm nearly perfect.

The psychosis runs deep.

So what of the need to create? There is so much failure in human creation. And failure requires time. Time to improve. Time to try again. Time to rewrite. Time for a class to teach success. Time.

I don't know where to find that time.

I know, intellectually, that pursuing perfection is futile. I've dedicated entire conference talks to this very thing. I know that my God doesn't expect perfection from me and I know He made me to create. I know His is the SINGLE and ONLY opinion that matters.

So you might ask the question, Why ever see a single other play in your life if it makes you have a raging case of PTSD? The answer to that is, the high of witnessing creative art is worth the impending low of wondering if I'll ever contribute anything of creative substance. I'd rather be on the sidelines than not in the stadium at all--even if the sidelines force me to think about my own psychosis and why I can't make time for failure.

And, I THINK, the sadness just might be my God saying, "How many times do you have to feel this way before you remember that I made you to make something and that I don't care if you fail 20,000 times in pursuit of creation?"

And, in that highest high of watching creation unfold before me, I'm forced to believe that maybe one day I'll have something to show for all the days that followed.