Week #43: Unanswered Questions.

My 2016

Week #43

Unanswered Questions.

This photo above may seem really random. But I looked at my phone and saw all of these messages at once, and I just had to laugh...because if you knew everything that had happened in that day to precipitate those questions, you'd understand why it's so comically tragic. 

The past week was tech week. I feel like that's all I really need to say for all of my theatre friends to immediately sigh and go, "Girl. Feel that."

For those of you who aren't theatre buffs, tech week is one of the most stressful weeks of a production. You have insanely long, tedious, frustrating rehearsals and have even more homework than you did before (of course), you're trying to balance school and theatre and office hours and sleep and pretty much failing at all of it. 

It's a lovely time.

This tech week was really no different, with just a few small additions.

- I slammed my head into a tabletop while studying one night and gave myself a concussion. It was a mild one, but still...it put me into a complete funk for about 2 or 3 days. DURING TECH WEEK. So I was in my corset, trying to do homework while my head glazed over and I just stared off into space. 

- I got really, really frustrated with one of my professors but decided not to talk to them about it. I was also frustrated with another situation in the department, and another one, and everything was building up inside but I wasn't doing anything about it.....and then it all just exploded. And while it was quite the cathartic experience, it was NOT a pretty sight. I think I yelled/cried/verbally vomited on 3 people in the span of about 2 hours. After the fact, my friend Katie looked at me and said, "Lex, you have been BLAZING down the warpath today. You're an inspiration. You're everything I want to be in the area of confrontation."

But that's just it. I hadn't been confronting anyone until that moment. And even then, I didn't want to talk about the issues I was having. My professor literally had to call, text, and send 2 other students to basically escort me to their office so that I would be forced to talk about my feelings. 

After that experience, I thought that I had reached a momentous fork in the road of my life. I was done bottling up my frustrations. I was putting the days of not calling people out on their crap far behind me. 

I told Katie, "Lex is a new woman. The warpath is now the normal path."

......except it really wasn't. I haven't changed at all. Even this morning, one of my colleagues interrupted me and began to talk over me while I was speaking. I just looked at them and sighed. My professor was the one who said, "Do you think you're more important then her? No? Then don't speak when someone else is speaking." Afterwards they told me that I should have been the one to say that. They said, "I don't know what else to do to make you stand up for yourself." 

Is that really what this is? Am I not standing up for myself? Am I actually letting people walk all over me? It's weird, because I've always thought of myself as a pretty strong person. I've never seen myself as someone who is trampled on by others. I guess I struggle with finding the balance between standing up for myself and just being a demanding, rude jerk. Where is the middle ground there?

I honestly have no idea. But my professor's words are haunting me and I can't help feeling afraid...afraid that I'm actually a weak, helpless, pathetic person who doesn't have the power or strength to fight for what she deserves in life. 

I don't want to be that person. I really, really don't. 

But how do I change?

As the photo at the top of this post shows you, there are so many unanswered questions in my life right now...I guess I can add this one to the ever-lengthening list.