October 7, 2019

I felt my breath becoming heavier and heavier and tried to conserve the little energy I had left to make it through the last show of our first ten-show week. My hands were suddenly cold. "No, not right now. Keep it together." My mind was wrestling with fear and the more I struggled mentally, the weaker I became physically. I ended up singing the last chorus of "Stars" on my knees and just went with it, dramatised it a bit which kind of worked and kind of didn't.

I stopped singing when contingency loop came in (meaning, some kind of challenge happened in the bungee cradle act and singers must keep singing til they say outro) and trusted Isaac would carry on. Caught up with my breath and belted the last two lines of the song, barely making it with dignity to the end. I am dreading to watch the video of that show next week.

Next thing I knew, I was on my knees backstage, head on the floor with eyes closed and panting. PMED team was already there. I could hear Sarah's soothing voice telling me it's okay and to take my time and she started giving me instructions on what to do next as soon as I felt better. I nodded my head to let her know I understood. I was wheeled in to PMED and they started wiring me to check my vitals. Everything was normal except for my very high heart rate.

I heard Sam call the contingency plan during intermission. Sarah had announced that I was out for the rest of the show. I resisted. I told them to let me finish the show and that I just needed to catch my breath, drink my gatorade and take something sweet and I could go on. Snow Temple wasn't a hard song/scene to do. Sam told me he didn't feel good about sending me out again until I got completely well. He smiled, held my hand and said it's okay. We got this. You can completely let go of the show right now. Relax. He said it with a smile. It almost broke my heart. I felt helpless, embarrassed and guilty. At the same time, I felt relieved. I remember someone telling me before that if you find yourself in a difficult situation of making choice between beating yourself up or letting others beat you up, choose them. Because they will at least know when to stop. (This was shared to me in the context of being in the medical field. But still, it works in other aspects of life.)

Most of the time, I just don't know when to stop. It was a first for me to experience my body being okay with letting go onstage. In front of an audience. And this is how I die. Kidding.

But jokes aside, doing long running shows where days are monotonous put me in a meditative state. I am becoming more aware of how my body copes with the work and how the work copes with me. It's like being married to a show. This is what it feels like to do a show ill. Or this is what it feels like to do a show with full energy and not breaking a sweat. This is what it feels like to sing without hearing myself in the house. This is what it feels like to do a show tired. This is what it feels like to do a show after a restful vacation. This is what it's like to be committed so much to the work that you do, you take yourself for granted. Other people step in and say stop for you because you can't say stop for yourself. It's annoying. It's disempowering. But at the same time, it saved me.

And so to the people who cared enough to take accountability to say no or stop for me, to the people who cared enough to walk away or let go of me for my own sake, I may not fully understand it or I may have taken it against you or took offense, I want to say thank you. Thank you for saving me.