I am currently in somewhat of a funk. This is entirely unjustified, I have just returned from the trip of a lifetime, very unlikely to be bettered. But that is the reason for my funk.
Put simply it is post holiday blues I suppose. But there is more to it. I was on an all expenses paid trip with my sketch group Who is Jean? to make films on location in California because we won the California Classics competition. My funk is not related to the fact that I have to pay for food now or that I don’t have a king sized bed and trips to Disneyland to look forward to, it is that I feel I’ve been torn away from a country that feels so much like home.
I have no familial connection to North America but something about the US and Canada speaks to my soul. It is probably related to the amount of American sitcoms I watched from a very early age (My Two Dads, Taxi, Happy Days, Family Ties and my endearingly misnomered favourite Cake and Allie). My immersion in American comedy, films and TV has continued and is almost certainly an obsession. I also love peanut butter and everything they do with it over there.
I think I also love the UK and I have a lot to be very happy about here (a hugely supportive and fun family, the chance to perform comedy with the best people I know, Edinburgh itself and all it can offer particularly during August) but I think it might be time to try the other side of the Atlantic. I’ve been in Edinburgh for 9 years and this flat for 8 and I’m simply accumulating things.
If I go away for a year and the Canadian working visa looks like the best bet, I’ll be forced to strip away the excess and focus on making myself be all I want to be. Montreal is my current thinking for a few reasons - it seems like a lively art-filled place, it has a big comedy festival and presumably a thriving comedy scene and it will involve learning French a bit more properly, something I’ve always wanted to do.
None of this will happen before August 2011 as the Fringe with Who is Jean? and as myself is looming. But maybe I’ll go after that. I never thought I’d leave everything behind before this trip but nothing feels more right now. Plus, why not be lonely in a new city?
