Why am I Always in Forward Motion?

How one's need to create can affect daily routines

For someone who loves a spin class, I really hate just spinning my wheels. If I’m not moving forward, I feel like I’m standing still. My mom has said when I was young I had to always be doing something, staying busy, creating something new. That has certainly followed me into adulthood as I still need to be constantly in motion.

I think that’s one of the reasons the pandemic hit me so hard as we all just stopped our lives. I’m still at a standstill with my “day job” where I manage a historic theater with no HVAC/ventilation system and we’re trying to get that installed which is taking forever. I feel confined since it’s all out of my hands.

So as many know, I turned to other creative outlets this year…mostly returning to acting. Today I was thinking about how I rarely want to return to do the same show on stage twice as I’ve done it and want to move forward. Always about forward.

Hmmmm….must be something there.

I’ve noticed with the acting gigs, I find the most fulfillment when I’m trying something new. That started with moving from background acting to playing roles in short films. Or creating my own user generated content commercials at home to being hired to work in front of a green screen as the only talent on set. All of those are new challenges which continue to push and motivate me to step outside my comfort zone. I even found going back to do a pickup scene two months after filming something was difficult as in my mind, it was moving backwards. I’ve even been working on new screenplays and other stories. There are times that even doing this feels like spinning and not gaining forward motion.

I wonder where this determination came from that I can’t simply be content in the now and always looking forward. That unease of the “now” played havoc on my mental state during the pandemic…and I still deal with it. It can manifest as a panic attack, which is absolutely horrible. I never had panic attacks growing up…this is all post pandemic that I’ve dealt with them. It is as if something is sitting on my chest…holding me down (the “now”) and I feel I must jump up and run (forward). I had that feeling last week when the air was so thick from the smoke and yet we couldn’t run as it was the outside air that was the culprit during that time. It’s amazing the power our brains have over our bodies and our lives. Mental health is just as important as physical health, so I hope everyone reading this is taking care of themselves in all respects. 

I think it’s important for us to discuss these things so that someone else in a similar situation knows they’re not alone. I’ve always wanted my life to be an open book (hence I post so much on social media).  Rather it be my fitness journey or the fact I have a new kid’s book coming out this fall - I want to share it all: the good and the bad so people can see that we’re all in this together. 

I shared on social media how the actor Treat Williams’s final tweet hit me. Before he went off on that fatal motorcycle ride, he tweeted he was mowing the lawn and how he wished he could bottle up the smell. I wrote we all need to take time to smell the grass. I think I need to take my own advice and learn it’s ok for motion to cease at times…just stop and smell the grass.