On my way....

...back to where I used to be.

Seattle. A city I haven't called home in more than 7 years. And yet, it's never stopped feeling like home. Hell, I never got rid of my Seattle cell number! And of course, New York is HOME home, it's where my family is, it's where I grew up (well, I grew up in Jersey, but New York was where I starting to figure out who I was), it's a city whose rhythms make perfect sense to me. But New York is not where my heart is these days. In truth, I've been pining for Seattle for some time. When I knew it was time to leave Vegas and the question was, "Where to?", it was always a question of "New York or Seattle?" And the answer was New York, for some very clear reasons, which mostly boiled down to my need to be quite certain that New York was or was not where I am meant to be at this stage of my life. Because I had no doubt that Seattle was calling me, I had no doubt that Seattle felt like the easier choice. But easy has always frightened me. I am afraid of the what-ifs. What if I went to Seattle and wondered if I had given up on New York? What if I went to Seattle and felt that I had settled? What if I went to Seattle out of fear rather than self-knowledge? And so, the answer was New York. And this past year in New York has been full of wonderful, full of stunning, full of awe-inspiring. I love my New York people, I love my New York theatre, I love my New York energy. I saw a dozen operas at the Met, lots of Broadway and off-Broadway theatre, made some fun little films, performed in some challenging & rewarding roles, reconnected with friends old and new, had dinners with my parents, seltzers with my brothers & sister-in-law, card games with my aunt, bike rides with my cousins, ice cream with my housemates. And oh, the place I called home for a year, wondrous Maui East, living with Alex and 3 friends who were exactly the people I needed to be surrounded by after my year of relative isolation in the desert...My year back in New York has been wonderful in so many ways. And yet, it highlighted the many things I want in my life that I wasn't finding. And while it's been heartbreaking to consider putting 3000 miles between me and the city of my youth, it's been a relief to decide to return to the city of my adulthood.

And so, I return. Me and Alex and She-ra have been journeying across the country for the past 5 days, and we'll arrive in Seattle tomorrow. And I'm excited. And I'm scared. But mostly, I'm excited. I have a better sense of what I'm getting into in Seattle than I did with Vegas, but it's still an adventure. I have great hopes for this next chapter in my life, and I know that there will be many struggles in the months ahead, as I try to re-establish myself in a city and a theatrical community that I said goodbye to long ago. But I welcome the struggle. Like I said, I've always been afraid of easy.

Here we go!!