I understand that I don’t own anyone’s life. I don’t control whether they stay in my life, whether by choice to leave or by passing away. The only thing I can do is to love them in the now. And, let’s be honest, be annoyed by them in the now. All the human feelings. I never really had an issue with this idea.
However, there was something I thought I did own. My life. My circumstances. My body, my energy, what I could do. And what I did was theatre. That was the only thing I really wanted to do: all my energy, my body, my love went into theatre. And then, things changed. I got ill. I suddenly had no control over my mind, my body, my energy, my life. As much as I kept telling my body, ‘Go, do this, do that, do what I want you to do’, it didn’t. It was like my gas pedal was broken.
I had to let go of so much. Relationships, health and most of all, the idea of who I thought I was going to be for the rest of my life. And that person was working in theatre. Every day of her life. That was the dream. It was such a big part of me, it felt like who I was. I never thought about being entitled to do it. I was just the girl who loved theatre. Until I wasn’t.
Because with the lack of energy came something else: the insight that I couldn’t do my work anymore. I couldn’t be in rehearsals all day, I couldn’t deal with all the people, it was too much. I tried for years, but kept crashing. After making myself ill yet again, I decided to quit. I told my friends and family. And by doing so, I discovered that your identity is a concept. I stopped being the girl who loved theatre.
I pushed theatre away and started to hate it. A lot. I was done with it. I was going to take time to find something else I wanted to do that would not make me ill. So I tried and tested different types of life, hobbies and work. In the meantime I learned about what actually suited me, instead of trying to make myself fit the life I thought I wanted. I learned about how much energy I actually had, instead of how much I wanted to have.
And at some point, years later, I started to love theatre again. And with that, I felt heartbroken, because I knew that I could never again do what I did. No big projects, no long days and nights. I couldn’t do the thing I loved most. Love became present tense again.
I let the waves of love and tears come and go. I loved it, but it wasn’t mine. I didn’t have any say over it.
Then somehow, an idea unfolded. What if I did the part of my job I used to do from home? I could manage that. I could still do the thing I love, but in a different way. I would have to test it, but it wasn’t impossible.
But how could I work in theatre again, with the risk of being constantly confronted with the parts of it I couldn’t do anymore? The answer turned out to be: because there’s nothing I love to do more. So I’ll take the grief and mix it with the joy it brings me.
I’m in the middle of this process. I don’t know if it will work. A part of me feels I have the right to a bump-free ride from now on. But that’s not up to me. I still don’t own my body, my circumstances, my future. I can influence them, care for them, work with them, but I cannot possess them. All I can do is try to meet them as they are and love what’s here while it’s here.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”
- Lao Tzu (adapted from the Tao Te Ching)
Esther is a writer, creator, and yogi from Amsterdam. She is a student and Karma Yogi at Studio 108 and does her best to be kind, gentle, and to laugh whenever she stumbles.
