Whose heads got filled with the neon lava, buried underneath this Ramshackle Day Parade

The blog writing has taken on a very different process since the theater opened and I have been trying to maintain some kind of division between professional developments and personal identity. Now, sitting down to write a blog requires me to think about what I have going on that isn't directly theater related and parse out what weird sort of musings are a product of non-theater stimuli or events. Not super inspiring for some snappy and maybe amusing writing.

One of the bigger things on my mind, in the personal sphere, is the fact that I have been on anti-depressants for some time and have recently gone off them. I haven't been too up front about being on medication for depression, which is funny considering how open I was about being pretty damn depressed at time.
It's not difficult, even just using my blog as reference, where and why I was depressed - I was away from home frequently and going through what could best be described as an emotionally taxing time with the teenager and other things. In more normal terms, I was pretty fucking miserable and it was super obvious.

Being gone was not only "hard" but it filled me with a lot of really complex and intense emotions, even when I was home. It made being happy really close to impossible since I was elated to be home and constantly distracted by the countdown to the next time I would have to leave to face endless hours staring out plane windows or listening to meaningless presentations.

In a very real way, I credit these things with helping getting HUGE off the ground. Not only did making progress toward having a theater while I was on the road give me some sense of accomplishment in the face of having a career in 'killing time' but it also served as powerful example of the things in life that are worse than attempting to open a theater and completely failing and going down in flames. The idea of continuing on being gone something like 150-200 or more days a year was one of the factors I can point at with some certainty and say was something that pushed me from thinking about it to acting in it.
When you have a situation that is making you physically miserable because it is so emotionally trying, suddenly the worst case scenario of losing some money and wasting some time doesn't seem so crippling, or even like a bad idea.

Tied to this was the epic horror story of the teenager's peak teenage years - which I still have a difficult time convincing myself weren't made much much worse by my constant absence. They would have been terrible enough on a good day but I am pretty sure I made them even worse and there is a tremendous amount of guilt that I was carrying around about it, every time I was sitting in an airport casually blowing company money on too much coffee or scotch it wasn't too far from my mind.

All of this lead to my prescription of some generic Prozac.
I was nervous going into the whole thing, the same way I was about starting Adderol, since it changes the way your brain operates. Changing your brain can be scary business on any given day but I improvise often and it depends on having at least a comfortable understanding with one's brain. So altering that delicate balance made me nervous as well. And now I'm back to that point as I fret about going off it as well. When I was worrying about it before I got a great, succinct message that simply said "You are more than just a collection of chemicals in your brain, my friend" and that was an important moment.
I'm hoping that still holds true.

I have to say the stuff is awesome. It allowed me to function in a place that was already obviously emotionally crushing and because of that i was able to work my way out of it. That last part being the key - I am glad I actually worked on the problems that were driving the condition instead of taking a chemical to numb the symptoms of being miserable.

And now, being far removed from both the conditions that were depressing and having accomplished something so energizing that I can be proud of at HUGE it's been a very different experience. That combined with Anthony's continuing maturity and our relationship stabilizing to the point where we actually look forward to being around him and he comes over to make cakes with Katharine, calls to ask our advice and is making us proud as a new adult - I had the feeling I had blown a fuse in my brain from being so damn happy - but as time goes on I started to realize that I am really goddamn happy and yet those emotions also feel muted, probably by the same medication that was helping protect me from the negativity so I could get here. So that led to the decision to stop. I know everyone that takes personality-altering medication suddenly feels better and has that moment of "well I don't need this anymore" when they really do but after careful, analytical observation I think I am ready.

Not only am I not depressed but I am truly happy.
It doesn't make for good, funny writing but that's what it is.