The Happy New Year Haze

It’s a strange old time January, isn’t it? For many, it signifies the end of festivity, generosity, indulgence and brings the beginnings of frugality, detox and regime.

‘Back to work!’ I hear family members sigh as the second day of 2020 approaches; off they go to their supposedly mundane, tedious timetables to pick up where they left off ten days prior. Back to the consistent pay cheque, back to the familiar team and back to the workspace they’ve made their own. How awful.

Of course, I jest; I am no stranger to the feeling of being bored with the norm & wishing for brighter, more exciting adventures. However, having met with various friends for copious amounts of coffee this particular January, I am becoming increasingly aware of the laughably dire circumstances January can throw at theatricals. Not only have half of us missed out on said festivity and indulgence, but we’ve also admirably ploughed through December at a million miles per hour, crashing into an abyss of unemployment & loss. Moreover, if you weren’t quite right for a festive story or season this year, you’ve quite possibly trudged through autumn balancing a fair few minimum-wage jobs, only to find January brings many, many less working hours. Not a fan of your 9-5 eh, brother? Think your boss would sub me in for a week?

I’m not sure I’ve met a single human being that revels in this - albeit anticipated - state. My most accomplished and positive friends still feel some sense of insecurity and a longing for direction. Some people appear to cope with these feelings rather well, whilst others seem to physically wilt under an almost tangible, small grey cloud. (For the record, I have a long beautiful history with my grey cloud family, generation after generation blooming in the form of that well known phrase ‘Post Show Blues’.)

The point of this writing, however, is not to call upon a swarm of unemployed actors to get together & shed tears on how awfully gloomy January is. The point of this writing is to simply let everyone out there calmly waiting for direction, or indeed nursing overhead storms, know that you are not alone. You are not weird, or wobbly, or incapable of succeeding in an industry that seemingly requires you to maintain nerves and bodies of steel. It’s healthy to grieve loss and it’s absolutely okay to feel scared. There’s a collective understanding that as creatives, we love and appreciate our jobs so passionately we could cut off a limb to live that dream; it doesn’t mean that when the going gets tough, you can’t feel disappointed and lost. In fact, those feelings of disappointment and loss are what will help reignite that fire within you bright and burning for when you next need it most.

Hold tight for the next adventure, hang on to those special moments you’ve made to treasure and please, never fear that a hazy foreseeable future means you are not all of the person you were two, three or twelve months before. January will inevitably end, opportunities will arise and the silence shall absolutely cease.