"I'm Climbing Uphill, Jamie" [THE LAST FIVE YEARS]

I won't lie, I've been going THROUGH IT this year. If you've been watching my videos, you might have noticed I've alluded to fighting for the life I want a few times. That quote I mentioned hearing in my Christmas In Lagos video, "May we not let what we will eat stop us from becoming who we will be," has come back to me periodically throughout the year because it's something I've had to remind myself of so that I actually live and not just survive, y'know?

What that has looked like has been me getting frustrated when I have to do something that takes me away from this 'life' I think I should be living, or me fighting my mind to keep hoping for more, and, as I have also said, that has been exhausting.

© "The Last Five Years" (2014)

I tweeted a few years ago that there's a Cathy song from The Last Five Years for every time I am emotional. Obviously, my girl is going through more than I ever have, but I have found myself relating to her range of emotions - her hope in 'I Can Do Better Than That', her excitement for a new beginning in 'A Summer In Ohio', her frustration in 'Climbing Uphill' ('I'm climbing uphill, Jamie' might be the line I've quoted the most from any song ever), her covert resignation in 'A Part of That', and even her despondency in 'If I Didn't Believe in You' (which is Jamie's song, but Cathy's emotions also drive it heavily).

The Last Five Years (TLFY), written by Jason Robert Brown, is a musical about a couple - Jamie, a novelist on the rise, and Cathy, a struggling actress - over a five year period that includes their dating, work, marriage, and eventual divorce. Spoilers. Or I guess not, because something that makes TLFY interesting is that it is told from both characters' points of view, but in opposite timeline directions. So, while Jamie's POV is in chronological order, Cathy's starts at the end and ends at the beginning of their relationship (which is BRUTAL). I have never seen the play, so my introduction to this story was through Richard LaGravenese' 2014 film starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.

© "The Last Five Years" (2014)

A lot of the emotions Cathy goes through in the musical are as a result of her relationship with Jamie, and how much she compares her life to his. And I don't blame her. He's doing really well, she's not, yet somehow, they have to do life together. That's hard. But having Jamie in her life only exacerbate an issue that's already there. Cathy is struggling. She's trying very hard to have her own breakthrough, but it's just not happening.

Me. If I'm being real.

© "The Last Five Years" (2014)

I've had moments this year where I've asked myself if I should give up. What's the point me making videos, or writing reviews, or trying to pursue 'being creative' when they haven't led anywhere? And when there are bills to pay?

What if the 'better' I keep hoping for never comes?

That's been on my mind a lot, and has driven me to places where I'm like 'nothing I do even matters'. What's the point of even trying? Enter despondency.

Cathy is so interesting to me because I think her being in a relationship with Jamie put her in some invisible race, where she had to keep up with him. I fully think (my opinion) that she would have been content if Jamie was not as successful as he was. If they were both struggling artists, but they got to make dinner together every night. Or if he was doing okay and she got to help design his book covers, I think Cathy would have been happy, more alive, maybe even more excited about pursuing her career. But because Jamie got so successful, she had to try and catch up so that she wasn't the girl "trotting along at the genius' heels" or "who require[d] a man to get by." Cathy is chasing a satisfaction that she does not have within herself. And I feel like that just keeps you chasing forever.

© "The Last Five Years" (2014)

It seems, the older I get, that there's a clock ticking away faster and faster and I have become concerned that I have nothing to 'show' for all the years I've been an adult. But whose race am I running?

I try to remind myself that I do the creative things because I love them. That they take a while, and not a lot of people see them, and sometimes I'm not even sure if they're good, but I truly enjoy the process of writing, and talking to a camera for 20 minutes, and spending hours editing. And the fact that I love them is enough reason to keep doing them. I'm saying this as someone who gets stressed out about the future and bills that I become paralyzed, doing things that you love is an important part of living. And we should live while we're alive.

© "The Last Five Years" (2014)

Sadly, The Last Five Years does not have a happy ending. In fact, the ending is so heartbreaking that I physically recoiled when I listened to the Hamilton soundtrack for the first time and heard TLFY's 'Nobody Needs to Know' referenced at the end of 'Say No To This'. But I'm hoping that after "Jamie [was] over and Jamie [was] gone," Cathy learned to slow her mind down and rediscover what got her to the stage in the first place. I'm not so naive to think that her career got better simply because she loved it again, but I do hope that even if it didn't, she still loved her life. And lived it.

That's how I'm trying to be.

© "The Last Five Years" (2014)

*If the themes in this sound like you've heard them from me before, once again, I've been going THROUGH IT. Also, once again, shoutout to musicals for keeping me afloat this year. Also, also, let the records show that I'll never forgive Jamie for what he did.