The Curse

Hey.
Something's been eating at me for about a week now. Messing with my sleep.

I was walking out of a rehearsal for this wonderful, sweet, hilarious musical I'm doing called PAGEANT PRINCESS, and I meet a friend of a friend. She recognizes me from a production of ASSASSINS I did with our mutual acquaintance, asks me how long I've lived now in the city.

I tell her it's been about a year and a few months for me. She then quips, So, has the city made you want to kill yourself yet?

I pause, shake my head. The elevator doors open, she smiles this tight, skull-rattling smile, and as she exits, she declares, Don't worry, it will.

And I know it's just a stupid, careless thing people toss out in trite social settings. I know people don't have the same trigger about suicide like I do . I know for many, many people suicide's an abstract, academic kind of fear. I've written before about the quiet path marked out by depression: in me, in others I love and have loved.

Is it wrong to feel like she was trying to curse me?

Look, I've known scores of friends of mine who did NY for a spell and moved away. To call them cowards or weak for doing so is beyond arrogant. There are plenty of reasons to leave this city and seek out more space, more freedom. But their path is not mine. I come to this supercharged small town, Manhattan. This island which (on a map) resembles a butchered chicken. I come here a man in my thirties. Single. Rife with the experience and the suffering and the sense of self my twenties gave me.

You think some town's gonna make me fall? Fuck you. I've been lonely before, I've known far fewer acting opportunities or friends or love or money before. Whatever small amount of sadness which comes now is a goddamn holiday compared to the terror and the collapse I've known in this life. There is a vigor to my creative life and an intensity in my gaze which has not ceased. Which will not cease. It is the altar where I gladly sacrifice comfort and pride and status. And I do not expect anything in return. Just the chance to make the work . To listen and be clear.