The Cost

My linebrother equates it to being in the military. No, I don't jump out of helicopters and parachute onto a mountaintop. I don't have to shave my head and be yellled at by a drill seargant. I am not charged with protecting the freedoms of others back home. But I do get drafted. I do understand intense physical training every day to be able to do my job at the highest level. I know what it's like to sometimes have to sleep in a stuffy top bunk bed on a rocky ship. I sympathize with what it's like to have to put on a uniform and have your living quarters inspected for approval by a 3-Stripe Officer. I do understand counting the days until you rotate back to the States to see your family.

This peculiar life I have chosen for myself as a working performing artist has a cost that most people don't see. A cost that sometimes takes its toll on us. In the past 8 years, I have been able to work and support myself full time as a singer and dancer. I have worked on cruise ships, at hotels, and most recently at a theme park. I get to do what I love for a living. I get to sing for thousands of people each night. I get to travel the world. I get to have once in a lifetime experiences on a regular basis. And I am grateful. Believe me, I am.

But there are elements that I don't share. I mean, how could I, without coming off as whining? Without seeming inconsiderate of all the follks back home doing more traditional work. It doesn't really fit with the aesthetic I'm building on my Instagram grid. #FirstworldProblems. Still, this life I have is not all sunshine and rainbows. There is price I pay for being on the stage. Many artists pay it. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. For the whole of their lives on the road.

You're gone.

I'm gone. For most of the year. Off on another whirlwind adventure. I am gone. On another ship for seven months. On another gig for three months. Another contract for three seasons. Think about that. Fall. Winter. Spring. I miss it all. Well, not miss it. I'm just not home. Scratch that. I do miss it. I think that's the whole point.

I miss it all. Birthdays. Weddings. Holidays. Funerals. Taco Tuesdays. Game nights. Happy hour. All of it. I am gone. On a new time zone. In a new country. On a completely different continent. Watching through the lens of my phone's glow.

How many seasons has it been since I left you? How many midnight toasts on New Year's Eve have I missed? How many of my niece's birthday parties have I actually made it to? {Sidenote: I made it this year, but the point still remains.} How many times did you need me, and I just wasn't there? How long was it before you just had to move on? How much do you give up to chase singular ambitions?

There's a line from Wicked, Galinda sings. "'Cause getting your dreams, it's strange, but it seems a little complicated. There's a kind of a, sort of a cost. There's a couple of things that get lost." And it's that loss that I sometimes mourn. Even while I am overjoyed to be doing what I love. A bittersweet symphony, if you will.

I get to ride elephants in the middle of Bali, Indonesia. I get to sandboard down the dunes in the desert of Dubai. I get to climb the stairs of The Eiffel Tower and see the Mona Lisa in person. Or stare at the Grand Canyon and contemplate my siginficance in the immensity of all that God has created. But there is something hard about having once in a lifetime experiences and then trying to break down their magnitude in a digestible way to all your friends and family back home without sounding bragadocious. Or worse disappointed.

I was actually sorta underwhelmed when we went to the Burj Khalifa because though it is the tallest building in the world, it was just another skyscraper when we got to the top. Plus, I had already worked a catering job the year prior at One World Trade Center in New York, and the view was more impressive there. In the end, Burj was just another tall building. Another phallic symbol in the world, jutting into the air to exert its mechanical dominance over other buildings of similar stature in the hemisphere.

Don't get me wrong. There have been some tremendous moments in my life. Getting to feed a kangaroo with my bare hands was a highlight of my year. Jumping off a cliff and doing Cersei's Walk of Shame in Dubrovnik is still one of the best days of my life. But part of me always wonders what it would be like to share moments like that with my loved ones. Better yet, what it might be like to do that with a partner. A lover. A companion through this life.

However, dating doesn't bode well for someone who spends years at a time gone from a home base of any kind. No one wants to fall in love with a phantom that can only visit them for a moon's turn. An apparition come to haunt your nights and gone by sunrise. He loves me. He loves me not.

The Disney princesses and princes don't always give you real context for the waiting. Staring out the window for months and years on end wondering when it will be your turn. Wistful. And lonely.

Again, to be clear. I love what I do. I have sang for 3400 people a night. I have jumped out of planes. I have gone snorkeling off the Great Barrier Reef. I have lived in South Korea. Mexico. And I am typing this from the 14th arrondisment of Paris, France. I have lived what some might consider a wondrous and extraordinary life. And now, I find myself dreaming of something that is a complete 180.

Civilian life.

An evening inside, cuddled up on the couch watching Living Single reruns. Flying back to my hometown to attend Charmander's graduation. Someone to take care of me and feed me soup when I'm under the weather. Matching pajamas. Couple's Halloween costumes. Dinner parties. Summer barbecues with brewskis and stars above. A camping trip I have been planning in my head for the better part of 3 years with the Three Amigos. Watching the children grow up. And being there for it. My mom's breakfast caserole at Christmas. A bullet train to Osaka doesn't have anything on that.

I enjoy what I have. But to get the next thing I want, I'm going to have to give this all up. Trade in my passport for a job assignment that doesn't require me to cram a new language into my head for the fifth time. To get your new life, it's gonna cost you your old one. That's what they say isn't it? I guess pretty soon, I'm going to have to pay up.