Quarantainment by Brian T. Shirley
Continued from front page of What's the Story?
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and have our own story and struggle. When this thing first hit us here in the USA I lost all my comedy, acting, DJ, Trivia and Dinner Detective gigs within a week. It was a massive blow mentally and financially. I was lost for 3 or 4 days in a fog of stress and anxiety. I still had my part time job of delivering pizza and trudged through that a few days a week. I picked up an extra shift here and there and continue to do so. It's a trickle of income, but it's keeping my head just under the water.
As I get used to the situation, I try to be a cautious as possible when out in public as I have a heart condition (quadruple bypass after a heart attack in 2018) and sleep apnea, but underlying conditions that could make getting the virus dangerous. Now I will say that early on in this process, I tried to stay positive, but the news kept getting worse and worse. Not only from the local, state and national news, but also on social media as people were getting sick and/or dying that I knew, one of them was a shock because he was young. The darkness kept closing in. What has slowly changed with me, I guess, is getting used to all this and accepting the reality. It seemed surreal for about 2 weeks, but I guess we're not going to wake up to a "normal" world tomorrow. The good news is we can take back our lives one day at a time. It may seem slow and agonizing at times, as we see sickness and worse all around. I believe we will start to see better days, bit by bit. If there are small victories and whispers of good news, let's hang on to them for all they're worth! Let's practice that social distancing, the hand washing, masks if we need to and what ever else the |
experts want us to do.
If you can find something to take you mind off all this, even for a little while at a time, that can also be a help. Whether a hobby, talking to an old friend, a movie, web series, music, book or even cartoons, I say do it. Your mental state will be the most important thing to get you through this, especially if you're like me and you ,live alone. I just got off a conference call with Whitney Andrews (Dinner Detective Franchise Owner) and our dinner theatre cast her in Chas, SC. She wanted to check in with us to see how we were holding up and to lets us know she was looking forward to us getting back to work when we can. It was nice to see everyone (We did a ZOOM call, kind of like Skype) and we all spoke of our situations and how we were making out. Then I sat down to write this article. It's things like that call, a few auditions here and there, the film projects I have coming out from all the work these past several months and doing this column/radio segment that help keep me going mentally. I really enjoy entertaining people and miss it terribly when I can't. But I'll be back on set, onstage and where ever else I can entertain soon. We all will. Don't forget that in the dark times. This is not a permanent situation!! Stay safe, stay positive and take care! Here's some links below to some projects should you need a laugh or some sort of escape. Thanks some much for all the support. Comedy Short "Two go in...one comes out. A Socumentary". https://youtu.be/UopjblM1lgo Pilot for the Political Drama "The Third Party" (Adult language) https://vimeo.com/402378316 |
