a l l i e

"Who I am and what I want are a secret."

If I'm losing readership at this point, then it's better that way. A blog, in the end, is still a diary of sorts. It doesn't matter who reads it, so long as you know that it's out there and that people are reading it.

I am at a crisis, you see.

Right now, I just need. Someone. To listen. Anyone, for that matter, because if this goes on, I don't know what will happen to me.

...*chuckles* Who am I kidding? Nobody, in this time of the day and age, would read something this bloody long about someone else of least importance to them, right?

Nevertheless...

Let me tell you my story.

This year is my final year of my degree. I made a promise to myself to perform better this year, for my sake, and my future. Since I met William, I felt like I had more purpose in life than I had ever before, that my life actually held some sort of meaning to it. I am still working at the tuition centre, still teaching English to the children there, and I planned to make an actual career from it. I am still with William, and I hope that in 2 years time, we will be wedded.

And to add more to my optimistic state, I decided to go out with a bang by putting myself out there during the audition for Twelfth Night at my college. Lo and behold, my first audition ever landed me as the female lead role, Viola. I was elated. Very much. And another promise was made to myself; I wanted to give my very best for this role, the play, and the ensemble, who have now become more than friends to me. They are my family.

The future seems bright.

The path was laid there before me; all I had to do is to walk on it and reach the end with all the worldly-knowledge I've gained throughout that walk.

Yet, what walk is complete without its complications?

To be honest, I don't know where or how it started. All I know is that I'm in it...for god knows how long. Exhaustion has been taking over me for the past couple of weeks. It could probably be from assignments, or campus, or rehearsals, or something. I don't know.

Then I realised that I wasn't just exhaustion. I feel as though...something, or someone is taking over me.

Time after time, rehearsal after rehearsal, I was told by my director to become Viola, the character that I am playing. And every time he says that, I try. I look for her. I searched for her. I called out to her.

She is there, she is in me.

We understand each other. We could feel each others' feeling, especially that lonely feeling that we both experience. While she did in the play, I did in real life.

The one person she could rely on was Sebastian. The one person I could rely on is William.

In my mind, Sebastian was the only person Viola could talk to, and be herself. He knew all her secrets, all her desires, dreams, pains. He was her confidant, more so than any of her family member. Then again, Sebastian later became her only family member after their father passed on. That further emphasised on how important Sebastian was to her.

As for me, I don't confide in anyone as often as I do with William. He is family to me; emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and soon, physically.

But along the way, Viola lost her brother. Whether he died, she knew not. All she could do now is grit and bear it, put on a mask, don a disguise, and go out into the world as Cesario.

And, as much as I know that I have my love with me all the time, but every time we part, I was as lost as Viola was. 'Grit and bear' was all that I lived on until he wakes up and talks to me again. As small as this separation may be, it is...the same feeling. It is still separation.

While we both continue to grit and bear that thought of being alone, we then realise that we have no one to turn to. No one to hear our thoughts.

Of course there are people, but do they hear us? Do they even bother to listen and not just hear us?

Yet, even if they do listen, would they even understand why it makes us feel this way?

Perhaps they can't see it. Perhaps it's because we can't, nay--don't know how to show it. Because we've always been revealing this side of ours to that one person. And now that that person is gone, we become lost, stragglers. Yet we can't get that side of ours out when people wonder about our welfare, about how we feel, and why we don't talk to them even though they offered to lend their ears to us.

But this is where the line is drawn between Viola and myself;

The monologue, to Viola, is a self-confession to no one. She was only talking to herself, talking to her mind. Hence, she is given the freedom to release herself that way.

I, on the other hand, am suppose to express the same feeling she felt to the audience. I am to convince them that I feel this way. I, who feels the same was as Viola, am to tell the audience the way I would talk to myself in private.

That is, by far, my biggest challenge, and the one thing that has been occupying my mind since our blocking (rehearsing by scenes from the script) got to that point. And all these while, I've been laden with that melancholic feeling that it began to exhaust all the optimism in me.

It's affecting my work, my...life at home and college too, I guess.

In my attempt to search for Viola, I let her take over me.

Maybe this is that moment that my director told me about.

...I have to untangle myself from this.

Somehow.