Five months ago I plunged once more into the murky depths of anxiety, which slowly began to sink my mood further and further into the ground, or the sea, or the bottom of a deep lake, or wherever this metaphor is going. In short, I felt awful and afraid and exhausted. Right at the moment I felt myself tip over I decided I needed to do something big that would pull me out the other side. I decided that I was going to take a play to the Edinburgh Fringe, I was going to make myself write it, and I was going to perform whatever it was that I came up with.
The biggest, most overwhelming fear I had at the time, and had had for a long while, was the fear of loneliness, or perhaps I was just feeling loneliness itself. And so since this was the most dominant feeling I had, and the only thing I could really think about, I decided that the play would be about exactly that. And in writing this play, in pulling out everything I was feeling onto the page and forcing myself to confront it I was going to heal.
I kept joking about it at first, that this would be an "elaborate healing process", but secretly I was hoping that it would come true.
I had the idea for the play over a weekend, and the next week I had a venue space in Edinburgh confirmed. The more I committed to, the less I could turn back on myself. I needed to find a team, and I needed to write it, and sign contracts and pay money I didn't have and then find a uni society to fund the money I didn't have and sign contracts with them and then I would be locked in and I wouldn't be able to get out until the end of the very last performance in five and a half months time.
The one thing I knew about this play was that I wasn't going to do it alone. I was going to surround myself with likeminded people and let them help me with what I had to do. I thought that perhaps I was being a bit hopeful about the type of cast I was going to find; that I was going to bond with them emotionally, that I was going to go on some sort of journey with them, that I would be forever grateful that they were there by my side the entire time. That's what I was picturing anyway, that's what I wanted.
Last week three of the loveliest, kindest, most beautiful women I have ever met came to stay in my house and we spent hours in sweltering heat rehearsing for this play about loneliness. And no matter how long it was taking on one tiny scene, or how tired we were, or how far away finishing felt, I did not doubt for one second that it would come together eventually. I have never felt that for a play, I have never felt so sure and so calm. I have never felt so safe in the presence of people who, until five months ago, I barely knew anything about. Two of them I only met in the auditions.
This play might not be the best thing I will ever write, or the best thing I will ever perform. People might not like it, it might get bad reviews, my parents might regret that they had to come all the way up from Buckinghamshire to see it, but I will not mind whatever the response may be.
When I decided to fully throw myself into this ridiculous project I did not know how much emotional recovery I was about to go through, I did not know how bad I was going to feel, I did not know, truly, how much I needed to do it. But now I am here, five days before opening night, feeling more at peace with myself, the universe and everything in it than I have done in a very long time. And even if someone tells me never to step on the stage ever again after this, at least I can tell them that I really, really gave it my best bloody shot. And that I am happy, and less lonely, and that's all I was really asking for.
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