tumblingdays

I took drama classes in high school. I can hear you joking now, "What teenager needs classes in drama?" But that's what the school called our theatre classes, and not without reason. I started my sophomore year, after a successful summer of re-inventing myself. I thought I would love being on stage- the attention, the acknowledgment... But I hated it. Part if it was stage fright, but a larger part if it was that performing didn't exhilarate me, it exhausted me. I continued with six semesters of classes because except for actually being on stage, I loved everything else about it. I loved creating something from scratch. I love the camaraderie. I loved studying plays, set design, lighting, even building sets. I loved the house lights going down. I loved costuming and music. I loved the act of finding the right symbols to evoke the right feeling at the right time.

Most of all, I loved directing. It was fantastic to be the bandleader of a crazy group of people working to bring a vision to life. I was, even in retrospect, pretty good at it.

Lately I have been struggling with a process in my career that is a lot like acting. Every time I have to do it, it evokes my memories of the times I had to get up on stage as a price for taking these classes that I otherwise loved. After it's over, I end up feeling like a vampire victim- utterly drained, confused, exhausted, a little bruised.

I thought I was going to be done with this stage of my career before the end of this year and then some things went wrong, and now my chance to move on is delayed until at least March 2012. I know it's the right choice, but the idea of keeping this up for six more months exhausts me just thinking of it.

Yesterday, I stretched myself at work a little. Generally, I am comfortable with the fact that I have chosen a job that suit me well, but I don't want to stagnate. At the beginning of this year, I was asked to join a training committee. We would plan and execute peer training throughout the year. I don't enjoy leading trainings and I am not a "joiner," so committees are not my favorite part of the world. I am not what you would call a "consensus builder." (Fact: Apparently I don't actually even know how to spell "consensus.")

I volunteered. A little discomfort is not enough to merit limiting future options. So, after a few planning sessions and a lot of discussion, yesterday I co-lead my first peer training session. It didn't go as badly as I'd feared. People were engaged and participated. There was a lot of discussion. Several of our peers told us afterward that they thought the session went well. Part of the point of peer training is that the instructors learn about something so that they can pass it on, and I learned a lot both in my prep work and in the session itself. Overall, I wouldn't call it a wholesale success, but it wasn't a failure either.

And best of all? It's OVER. My obligation was the pre-planning sessions and to teach one of the classes. Since I went first, I do not have to teach other session.

Now comes the other tricky part- once you get on a committee at my work, even though it's only supposed to be a one-year appointment, they are damned hard to get off of.