Hard Lessons and Pleasant Surprises - iO Intensive Week 2 Day 2

Today was wayyyyy more enjoyable than yesterday was for me. I came in on time and rested and I was ready to dive into the work immediately. I think the reason it worked better for me is that we did less all play work and actually got to see specific examples of things we were working on. I worried that I might've been tuning out yesterday because I didn't get any me me me time, but I feel happy about the lessons taught and learned today even though I was sitting an inactive for a lot of it. I also briefly wondered if my frustration stemmed from the fact that I've learned and taught every technique that we've used so far this week, but again, I wasn't bothered by that today. It helps that we were using every game differently and far more patiently than we would in Nashville,  so the development of the essential skills they employ is multiplied a ton.

One of many great quotes today: "Please don't abandon your shit." How funny that I'd talk about Adal's lesson of patience and working with what's in front of us just ahead of a week that's focused on those two things. I'm getting positive notes from Eleanor (we all are) but I am catching myself not contributing enough and going a little too fast, so I'm just starving for more reps over here. It just dawned on me how doing five weeks of improv class means going at least five weeks between actually performing in front of an audience. I'm fuckin hungry for the applause and laughs and just being able to get up and fully be myself for 90 brief minutes. I feel caged up by the class structure and it takes a lot of effort to not monopolize speaking and performing time for the rest of my classmates.

This year in improv has been kind of painful for me in one very specific way: realizing and accepting that I won't get along with all improvisers. That, in fact, some of them might really hate me. Nashville Improv Company has a ton of people who I've connected so thoroughly with that I naively believed it would be like that with everybody who makes this weird, dumb art if I put enough effort into it. Expanding the circle of people who I'm working with has just let me see that I'm not everyone's cup of tea and that's going to have to be okay. I'm getting better at recognizing when it's time for me to shrug my shoulders and stop trying to make a good impression. If they can come around on me, they will get there eventually. Plus, not meshing well with some people just makes the people I get along with that much more special to me.

One more thing that I've noticed: I don't feel nearly as lonely as I expected to. My darkest expectations had me coming up here and earning the ire of everyone in Chicago on day one and having to endure five weeks off feeling like and being treated like garbage. My friends and family expected me to come up here and have such a good time and make so many friends that I would decide not to come home. The reality is that I've made a few friends, met a lot of great people and have learned a lot, but I'm no more lonely than I'd have been at home. I spend time on my own pretty regularly and I am very grateful for it, but I have also been too busy to wallow or to even consider that I have something to be upset about or uncomfortable with. Honestly, this feels normal. Living in Chicago is the same as living anywhere else, there's just a lot of stuff to do here.

It feels like I'm trying to run while I'm being taught how to crawl, and I wonder if I want to run because that's all I know how to do. I probably know how to crawl, I've just been exclusively running for far too long.