Saturday, May 12, 2012

The Circus

As an event coordinator I need to be able to wear a lot of hats to make my job come together. It's all a balance of acts. Sometimes I am the Ringleader, cook, the stall holder, the poo shoveller, the audience, the maintenance girl, the psychic, the AV & lighting technician,  the tightrope walker, the accounts department, the Strong Man, Lion Tamer, and sometimes I'm too tired to be anything at all, and have to peel off my painted face for some blank R&R. All of the acts eventually come together to be one (hopefully) smooth show. In work, and in our personal lives, things can always happen to disturb our balance. Our roles always change, and so do we.
Maybe:
- You fall off the tightrope when the only thing positive about your day was a pregnancy test
- You thought you were dating a lion, but he was a coward, who tended to run and hide in other women's privates
- you're a snake charmer and have recently been bitten (otherwise known as a bad dating experience)
- you have just read the Women's rule book and have realised that your phone is indeed working- it's just that no one wants to call you
- You see backstage & get disappointed
- You are a spectator - you run the breakfast buffet at a hotel and watched an international tourist construct their bacon and egg sandwich with every trimming imaginable, except the plate, to then ask you for one to eat it off- as if you weren't just a witness to an act of immoral hygiene.
Whatever the experience might be, we are always taking it all in, reinventing, fine-tuning, and always reshaping our acts to change the feel of the show.

I've come to wonder though, when are we 'ourselves' the most? Is it when we are alone? The happiest? Or is the Bigger Picture; every facet of yourself that makes the one rough cut diamond?
When we go through periods of change, sometimes we feel lost, cowering in the corner of the Big Top of opportunity because we just don't know what we like, who we love, or who we are for a time.

When we hide, it's easy to go through periods of, what I like to call, The Cruise. We don't get involved emotionally, never feeling extreme happiness OR sadness. We just exist. It gets boring. In playing it safe, I have become said Cruiser, so I decided to Change it up.
I then did research for our department head meeting & came across a hot deal for "Trapezing - the Catch". I thought this would be my chance to feel something - if not just my pants wetting. I decided to test my fear, defy gravity (and my bladder), and put adrenalin.com.au and myself to the test.

I was the girl in high school that convulsed mid shit-scared-squat on the mini balance beam, so when we rounded the corner of the building and saw the trapeze apparatus, boy did I feel something. I felt like an adult midget-toddler standing at the bottom of mount Everest with nothing but a toothpick and a can of Heinz to get to the top.

Our first exercise was to hang from a bar, swing your legs over and let your hands go, so you are swinging from your knees. I panicked and said 'I can't do this', and I was left to hang there flailing until I did in front of a group of strangers that now had the knowledge I was a chicken shit. The intructor gave me no choice. I was convinced that my lease on life had a big EVICTION stamp across it. I was very shaken up and definitely pushed out of my comfort zone.
I may have forgotten to mention that this was on their practise bar; a metre off the ground.

In the end, I climbed the 50,000 ladder rungs to the top, looking back down at the ground as everything seemed to get smaller and smaller. I stepped onto the platform, listened for the cue to 'Jump', Tuck, Flip, Let Go, executing the move perfectly... except for when my front flip was more of a flop- ending with my face mashing the net, where my back should have been, but we don't talk about that. I went there intending on being the best Natural-Circus-Spider-Money there was, but even though I didn't try and get The Catch, it was the most amazing, liberating, freeing, Jack-I'm-Flying moment of my entire life.

No matter how hard or tiring things get, I'm glad I have had time to myself to work out all the different things I can be. Sometimes I think of taking a step backwards, to who and what I used to be, know, and love- for the comfort of it.

Maybe that's The Catch. You have to be in every different act to see the show in full. Sometimes getting what you want isn't always what you need. Maybe what you need is to risk looking like a clown. Jump, Let Go, hit your face on the net and climb back up the ladder to do it all again in order to fly & get a standing ovation.

How does one become a butterfly? They have to want to fly so badly, that they are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

I have realised that with finding my balance, I have found the key to myself. If you go back to something or someone & re-invest in something that only hurts you, you're bound to lose it all over again. There is no going back down the ladder. The rest of your life is waiting on ground level, but you won't be able to go on until you see it from a new angle. From above, there is clarity, and the old things get a little smaller every step you take. Move on, push forward and jump. The safety net is the lowest you can fall, and even if you go down head first, it will heal.



Finding my wings,


<3 Miss Coordinate