Hell Week: A New Definition

This week was the worst.

Hell Week has a couple of definitions- I looked them up. It can refer to frats and sororities or midterms and finals or theater productions. Hell Week as I know it is the week leading up to opening night and includes long tech rehearsals. Hours of stopping and starting and hoping to make it through the show. Its mentally and physically exhausting to play a show, stop and start, and focus. Focus is a typical challenge for me. :)
Anyhooo my week leading up to opening night was quite hellish.

I had a crazy busy schedule with work, tech week for the show I'm playing, and another gig (this evening). In addition, I picked up a new client and we had our conference call with the MT on the east coast (see post below). Also, I started house sitting this week for some family friends. So.... as you can read, my plate is quite full.

After logging all of my easter/holy week mass hours, I was gearing up for this crazy week. And monday I was just flattened. I had a really tough session that just caused my emotional cup to runneth over. From the get go, this week did not turn out as I had planned. Go figure. Silly Me for planning. I couldn't get it together in time for my other sessions, so I had to call in and cancel them. Everyone was extremely understanding and I knew it as the right decision. I had the conference call monday night and a rehearsal. Eventually I'd have to pull it together and I needed the time to do so.

Tuesday was better. I picked up a friend's amp that I'm using for the show and got to sit in on some rehearsals. Wednesday- Thursday were tech rehearsals till 11pm. Plus full days of sessions and seeing a new client for the first time.
Last night I had a few sessions, a practice gig for this real gig tonight and opening night. PLUS there was an opening night reception for the cast, crew and orchestra which turned out to be an excellent end to this crazy stupid week. Maybe sleeping in this morning is the best end of this crazy stupid week.

Lesson learned.

It's hard to stay focused on the one day at a time when each day feels like a deluge of things. But as my friend said, "it's do-able and you may look back and wonder how you even did it." She didn't say it had to be graceful.

More on our conference call later....