i'm 30

I turned 30 a few weeks ago.

Nearly a month, in fact.

I meant to write a big reflection-type post with lots of feelings and thoughts, but more than reflecting on my 30-total years--

--well, 29-total, since I'm in my thirtieth year, if we're being specific.

More than reflecting on my 29-total years, I've found myself thinking mainly about my twenty-ninth year specifically.

It was my best year.

I got to finish my 20's and pass into this grand new decade of (supposed) adulthood by having my very best year.

How lucky am I???

It was also my very hardest year, which surprises me since I had a few hard years in my 20's. 2006. 2014. Both pretty not great years. 2010 was hard too. But I think what's different between those years and this year is that I feel like I have so much to show for this hard year.

Not the least of which is, you know, turning 30.

I lived in England this year, which was life changing and dream-come-true and lonely and wonderful.

I visited Ireland, Italy, Spain, Scotland (twice) and traveled all across the country.

London has truly become my second home.

I saw 41 plays in Birmingham, London, Manchester, Liverpool and Carlisle.

I also saw Dave Matthews Band.

I visited the States twice. I went to LA, Las Vegas, Maine, and of course Utah sweet home.

I got engaged to the greatest man who ever lived, in Hollywood, CA no less, and then we celebrated in Disneyland.

I played the greatest prank of all time on my parents.

I got two sinus infections, a nasty bout of laryngitis, and my thyroid swung low again.

I performed in three plays.

I rang in 2016 in London with my sweetheart next to the London Eye and then walked 4 miles back to South Kensington on the greatest night ever.

I fell more in love with two small cats than I ever thought possible and have relied on them for emotional stability far more than any domestic creature should ever have to provide a human, which they've allowed me to do without complaint.

I cut a fringe in my hair again, which I think has been a success?

Turns out everything I thought I knew about singing, moving, standing and breathing are completely inefficient and wrong.

My sweetheart lived 4791 miles away, but he's been able to visit four times including two lengthy work assignments!

My family lived 4795.3 miles away, but they've been so supportive and encouraging and I can't wait to show them my home sometime next year.

I learned to cry again, in pain but mostly in joy.

I've never felt more excited, terrified, prepared, unqualified or ready for my career as an actor.

I lost 20 lbs-- and then gained it all back surrounded by my family and the best friends I never could have dreamed.

I began to adjust to and take on the joys and awkwardness and difficulties and excitement of blended families.

I have become comfortable with Military Time.

I was mugged for the first time ever in my life, without even knowing it!

I gave some drunken Scottish youths a good piece of my mind, like a proper curmudgeon.

I say "toilet" for bathroom and "corridor" for hallway and "shop" for groceries and (most horrifyingly) "y'alright?" for how are you.

My social circle has parred down so far I almost don't recognize the former butterfly I once was. I'm so grateful to truly know the meaning of friendship, and to have learned to rely on myself.

And as I stood on the south bank of the Thames at 11:30pm, 18 September, eating frozen yogurt from a Snog food truck whilst a street performer sang my favorite song "Here Comes the Sun", waiting for Big Ben to chime in my birthday like I heard him chime in 2016, I looked at the National Theatre in the dark and just knew that everything I've done, everything I've learned, everything I've unlearned, all of the letting go and taking on--

--it led me to that exact moment of peace and stillness and accomplishment and pure ambition.

I'm 30!

Oh how grand.

i want to be a star

I was walking home from the bus stop tonight out here in Erdington and I looked up at the sky when I turned onto my little Grove, as I sometimes do, and stopped right in my tracks to appreciate the stars.

Stars!

I can see stars in the middle of my neighborhood!

This is a thing I never expected when I moved across the world to the UK's second-largest city-- to be able to see stars from my doorstep, and quite a lot of them really.

It reminded me of that part of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the only part that made me spontaneously weep and weep and weep with the ugliest cry face that a person ever had (especially in the audience of a theatre), just giant tears dropping hard off my cheeks without knowing exactly why, the part about stars that's so comforting and sad and wonderful, all at once--

"And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don't even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small. And if you have difficult things in your life, it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means they are so small you don't have to take them into account when you are calculating something." 

I feel small in the world these days, living here across the whole world in the UK's second-largest city. Not small in a defeated, lonely way-- just small in a way that makes me appreciate the wonderful, lovely complexity of my teeny tiny little life which is, in the scheme of things, so minuscule.

So minuscule, but filled with so much light and love and satisfaction and goodness.

And in a way, the stars and red dwarfs and the galaxy and all the galaxies give me so much assurance that I am meaningful-- my life is meaningful, and my work is meaningful, and my relationships are meaningful-- because some of these giant balls of fire have been dead or exploded for longer than my brain can comprehend, but they continue to live on in light-years so that I can marvel up at them and think really big thoughts. I am inspired by these big, dead, exploded stars that live on in light. They matter. They matter to me.

And my little (by comparison) life matters.

What doesn't matter are daily annoyances or hiccups. What doesn't matter are frustrating little details that feel so important-- but aren't.

What matters is how I treat people. What matters is the work I do. What matters is burning so brightly that my energy continues to burn for hundreds of thousands of lightyears after I'm dead or exploded, because someday, somewhere, someone will look up into the sky and need my light that's still visible, even though I'm gone.

I can't believe I can see stars here.

It makes everything so much better.

Not my view exactly, but pretty close representation.