OUT-CAST

What should one do, if one is beginning to suspect, that one is a loser?
Every January, for the past few years, I find myself in the same situation. Despite working tirelessly and diligently the rest of the year, I am broke, unemployed and desperate to find something to do, that will prove to me that I am not a loser. This recent January was no exception. Despite sweating away half my body weight in the last pantomime for three months, unforeseen expenses lay in ambush and January bared her teeth at me again. January is also “audition” month, and this January was brimming with gruelling auditions, followed by nerve-crippling call backs, and anxiety sprouting elimination rounds. There were auditions for: Films, sitcoms, commercials, theatre and musicals, all of them, providing their own unique brand of self-doubt and requiring a different type of fear-tackling. This year despite a few close calls, I didn’t get ANY of them. “Niks”, “Nada”. I was the “un-chosen” one. And it sucked like a surfaced Kreepy Krauley.
As I approach my 33rd birthday I am getting a bit long in the tooth to play ensemble and let’s face it, I wouldn’t be my first choice for the macho new game ranger in “The Wild” either!
So my house-of-cards-self-esteem comes crashing down and I begin to panic. What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I have what they want? What could I have done differently? Wait a minute! Why am I still single? Why hasn’t anyone hot, poked me on Facebook recently? Why am I getting fat? Why am I getting older? Why do hangovers last 3 days now when they used to last a morning? Why do I have to do squats and eat NOTHING delicious, if I want a flat stomach? Why Larry? Why?
Then out of the blue I am offered not one but two lecturing jobs. “You want me to teach three bunches of ‘twentysomethings’ for two hours every week for seven weeks?”, I ask in disbelief. “Me?” To which my very pregnant friend Sarah replies: “Yup.”
Then another University offers me the opportunity to teach my very own curriculum (Independent Theatre making self-created from scratch) for twelve weeks. I am flabbergasted and excited and even more petrified than I was, for any of the January auditions. What if the students get bored? What if they don’t listen? What if I suck?
What have I got to lose?
In less than two days it will be Valentine’s Day and I will be giving my first class at Wits. I am still single and broke, and will have to wait for two months before my first pay check. But this is something new. Maybe I can do this? Maybe this is the role I’ve been waiting to be cast in?
Maybe Valentine’s, this year, won’t be so bad, single or not.