Last Friday night Meg and I had a very classic New York City evening of dinner and the theatre. It was an especially special treat...as we got to see one of my very best friends in his first Broadway show, Mr. Drew King. (Oh and the show is On the 20th Century starring the lovely Kristin Chenoweth and Peter Gallagher... even though Drew is our star!)

Drew and his tap dancing quartet stole the show. I mean just look at them:

Can you tell I'm proud? Well, I'm certainly not the only one. I met Drew years ago in tap class. We performed one of our first big NYC gigs together, we became roommates and lived together, and we pounded the pavement together. We bonded over this love for dance, the heartbreak of the hundreds and thousands of hours we were putting into it but not necessarily feeling noticed or successful, and the hope that maybe we'll really get a chance to "make it" someday. We just wanted the opportunity to try. (We also bonded over our love of Bon Iver, red wine, kale, traveling, boy problems...and lots of other "human" things too.) We'd have this cycle of encouraging the other through the rejection of the business- "You can't give up!" "Hard work will pay off!" "Work ethic and kindness don't go unnoticed!" "You're not fat!" "You're not too skinny!" "There will be more auditions!" "They don't hate you!" "YOU'RE being CRAZY!" "You ARE NOT crazy!" " I'm sure you didn't sound that bad!" "Here, have some wine." It goes on... And I'm not the only one who had this relationship with him.

For all you non-theatre-folks out there, we're all kind of in the trenches together. Or at least that's how I'd like to look at it. It's easy to feel isolated and discouraged when you're not caught up in a whirlwind of work opportunities, but if you look around you're in the same boat of a lot of people- the whole 300 people in the holding room at every audition are in that boat or they wouldn't need to be auditioning too. And you can either judge the other people down in that trench with you, compete against them, and give them all the side eye, or you can find a few comrades to survive it with. What do you have to lose in finding some trustworthy and encouraging friends to go through this season of life with? Make it a little less discouraging, a little more comical, and a LOT more joyful.

I've been reading Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things lately, which ranges from advice letters on love, life, loss, relationships, and all things in between. In one letter, she is asked what to do when you're jealous of people who succeed at what you do even if you like them.

“It makes me sick that I don’t feel happy for them, especially when it comes to my close friends, but there it is. When I think of their successes, it only reminds me of what I don’t have.”

— Awful Jealous Person

Besides putting this lady in her place, Strayed taps into how someone else's success doesn't have to define yours.

“I know it’s not easy being an artist. I know the gulf between creation and commerce is so tremendously wide that it’s sometimes impossible not to feel annihilated by it. A lot of artists give up because it’s just too damn hard to go on making art in a culture that by and large does not support its artists. But the people who don’t give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity. They’ve taken into their hearts the idea that there is enough for all of us, that success will manifest itself in different ways for different sorts of artist, that keeping the faith is more important than cashing the check, that being genuinely happy for someone else who got something you hope to get makes you genuinely happier too.”

— Cheryl Strayed, aka BOSSSSSSS

When I read this after seeing Drew's show again last week, it made my heart smile. It's the little things. Like being able to be genuinely happy for someone else's success. That's not a little thing, it's actually a big thing. To be able to have joy for others, the ones you've spent years in the trenches with, and to be able to celebrate them. If that doesn't give you hope, I don't know what will. If you don't know Drew, he's one of the most encouraging friends you'll have- and he's got lots of them! He's always busy out supporting someone's show, celebrating a birthday, bringing over a bottle of wine on one of those nights where the extra large bottle of wine in needed, which is why his dream coming true has made so many people incredibly happy and proud. He got his chance! There was a collective gasp heard around the country as his friends far and wide gathered around their TVs to watch our own perform at the Tony Awards. And right at the top of the number, there he is!!! (0:15 below to be exact)

I had the perfect view of the show that Friday night: I looked over Meg's lap to the aisle across from us where Drew's mom was sitting on the edge of her seat surrounded by his aunts and uncles who drove 5 hours that day to see him perform. She may have been beaming more in that seat than Drew was up on that stage on the other side of the orchestra pit tapping his face off. My heart grew three sizes as we all were so proud in that moment. That's joy.

Don't you want to be part of a community like that? No matter what industry you're in? I don't know if my creative endeavors will ever make me millions, but this is the rich life.

notes:

- see On The 20th Century through July 19th and cheer on those porters!

- support theatre and the arts in general and give us jobs :)

- if you want to learn how to tap dance, it will make your life happier and it's never too late to start a new hobby! we suggest BDC or STEPs if you're in NYC!

Some days I don't realize what's really happened until I'm taking a shower. Does that ever happen to you? I don't know if it's the running water that soothes and closes off the rest of the world that allows for such clarity to seep in. Or perhaps it's that I finally stop thinking and give myself a break, and all of a sudden my mind is able to connect things together. Anyway, my conclusion: my most cohesive thoughts and clearest ideas often come in the shower.

Like the other day, I conned my sister to come over to my new place after work...luring her with wine, because I needed her to edit a project for me (she's so fancy like that). What happened? While cooking dinner and chatting, I drank all the wine and Em put together the Ikea couch I had stacked in piles in the corner. She saw it there- I had unpacked it, stacked it up, but obviously hadn't made an attempt to figure it out. I was fine with letting it sit there for days- I had conquered so many to-do lists with the move and my brain was quite fried. I was like: why are beads of sweat coming down her face? I didn't ask her to build it; she just did it. She knew it needed to be done, and, like a boss, took the task into her own hands. (note: I don't think there are many people who could have built this thing solo. Emily, folks...she's an assertive one.)

Every time I anticipate feeling overwhelmed with dealing with so many things by myself, I'm not alone. I've had different people swoop in to force me to purge clothes that for some reason I still have from my high school years in Georgia, accompany me as I unload and explore a new hood, eat cupcakes and champagne with me, send me links to all their favorite apartment ideas, organize me, dance with me, dream with me. Meg is like a mega organizer. Emily is a do-er. Caitlyn stopped by to eat lunch and catch up, and after our (delicious) kale salads, we were on the floor talking the highs and lows of relationships. Meanwhile, I didn't even notice that we were unpacking more boxes and building some lamps. (let there be light!) Like where did all of these angels come from?? Seriously?? #soblessed

Who needs a boyfriend when your sister can set up your internet on your TV, build your couch and bed, edit your videos, and pick out your wine glasses at Ikea when you're in the middle of a sugar-crash-meltdown after eating 2 bags of Swedish Fish? (Guys, there's like soooo many rooms in that store before you get to the kitchen stuff. Ikea is exhausting. The BIGGEST sugar crash.)

I've always (tried) to prioritize people in my life. I try not to be too distracted with my own world to pick up on when a friend needs me to hop on over with wine in my sweats or send the sensible text filled with messages that only emojis can express. I'm not perfect at it, but I crave to love those dear to me. And when I was in the shower at the end of that day exhaling all the grime-- all the sweat from my 6 layers of clothing I wore out in the snow after dance class and the wine stains that dripped on me accidentally throughout the evening and the residue red lipstick from the biz meeting at the top of the day... I'm like: oh, wait. I may live alone in this new apartment. But I'm not alone.

Oh how I'm loved. Oh how lovely is community and family. They show up to do one thing, and they take care of what needs to be taken care of.

It makes you suddenly realize after shampooing and conditioning your hair (I mean dreadlocks by the end of the day when scarves are involved, am I right?) -- maybe the love you give to others isn't going into the infinite abyss. And maybe the love and care given to me is not going there either. Maybeeeee the love given and received is noticed and it means something. We were planting lupine seeds and we didn't even realize it. It's this wonderful circle effect that I hope keeps on giving.

And on that cold snowy night, when the temperature was barely two digits and the sun was only shining several hours a day... there was so much warmth. I sat on a couch that was built with tunes playing on the TV that I couldn't figure out, drinking wine in my towel after this shower, and I exhaled months of stress. I found a new happy place.

notes:

- a visit to ikea brooklyn can be a pleasant and cheap field trip. i'd suggest taking the free water taxi, planning to eat once you get there (especially if you're into meatballs), and avoiding the weekends.

- making good friends is not overrated.

- don't let to-do lists rule your world.