The Performer's Quest

Let us try to write—to find words when we have none, to express the unspoken.

… I dream, endlessly. I dream so much that the lines between reality and possibility blur. My dreams have been my companions, my sanctuary, and sometimes my torment. They are not whimsical fantasies or lofty aspirations; they are the echoes of a soul yearning for something that feels true. They are the silent whispers of a life I have imagined but have yet to hold. And yet, these dreams have always remained just that—dreams. They tease, they taunt, they linger just out of reach.

Am I crazy to believe in them? Are these dreams standards, or are they a compass guiding me toward something real? If they were planted within me, does that not mean they must exist, somewhere? Most of the time, they are not grand illusions but an intimate reflection of what my soul craves, what it aches to touch. But even as I write this, I feel the weight of confusion. I feel lost in a forest of my own thoughts, with no clear path forward.

I am tired…So tired.

I write this alone, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the realizations pressing down on me. The weight of knowing that I am walking forward into a silence so profound it echoes. I either embrace the solitude or perform. And oh, how I have performed.

I am so tired of performing.

I am tired of the circus. The endless parade of masks and roles, each one crafted to be seen, liked, loved, understood. I perform to be accepted, to be known. Even my performances have performances. I rehearse how to show up because people expect me to. I practice my lines, my gestures, my smile, all to fulfill their expectations.

At the heart of it all is a little girl who once longed to be told she was beautiful, smart, kind, lovable, and loved. That she was enough. That her voice mattered. But she was never told. So I became her performer. I have been staging shows for her validation, each one crafted to hear the words she needed at different stages of her life.

The shows have been endless, and I am exhausted.

The Broadway of my existence is littered with productions, all starring me. Different people have come to watch their favourite performances, over and over again. I am a slave to their applause, to their rave reviews, to their approval. And yet, I cannot even answer the simplest questions: What do I like? Who am I? What do I want? Who do I want to be?

I know why I care so much. I know why I perform. It is because I want someone to carry that little girl, to whisper into her soul all the words she needed to hear. To drown out the deafening silence of her doubt with a chorus of love and affirmation. But no one has carried her. So I keep performing.

The truth is, I do not believe in myself. I do not think I am beautiful or smart. I battle my own mind, torn between the truths I’ve been told and the lies I’ve internalized. I wish someone would silence that voice of doubt within me.

My neglect was different. It was not the absence of a caregiver or a loving presence. It was the absence of me. I was never seen as myself; I was seen as a performer. From the moment I became aware of my role, I was cast into this endless play. I was never given the chance to find myself, to nurture, understand, or love the person I was meant to be. That is the deepest form of neglect—to exist only as a reflection of others' expectations.

If I did not perform, I was invisible. And so I became addicted to the performance. My life has been a series of stages, each one constructed by someone who needed me to play a role for them. “Tell me who I am,” I seemed to ask with every act. And as long as they validated the performance, I continued. But eventually, the act would feel hollow, the stage suffocating. I would realize the show was not me. So I would run.

I have left so many stages behind, so many people who thought they knew me. To them, I was just the show, and when I stopped performing, I ceased to exist. They would criticize, belittle, and devalue the very performances they once adored, calling them unworthy, and dismissing the art I had poured my soul into. But for me, it was survival. I could not stay.

The cycle has repeated itself countless times. Each time, I learned more about what I was not, but still, I did not know who I was. The performances have worn me down. My knees are weak, my body is tired. I miss the applause, the fleeting moments of recognition. But I am tired of the same shows, the same roles, the same desperate quest for validation.

The little girl inside me has driven these performances. She clings to me like a ventriloquist’s doll, feeding off my exhaustion. I resent her for it. I want to drop her, to run far away. But I cannot abandon her. She is me, and I am her.

We are trapped together, prisoners of a Broadway line that stretches endlessly before us. But I have realized something: there is a world beyond the stage. There are other paths, other possibilities. We do not have to perform. We are wasting time, giving so much of ourselves away for so little in return. I want to applaud her—to tell her she is enough, that my one clap carries more love than a thousand standing ovations. But she does not hear me. She hears only the crowd.

She performs because she has been trained to. Like a dog conditioned to bark on cue, she seeks the approval of her master. The applause is her treat, her validation. She has never known anything else. She has lived on breadcrumbs, never daring to ask for the loaf. And when she does, she is called greedy, ungrateful. So she continues the performance.

But one day, she will stop. She will say, “I might not know what bread looks like, but I know there is more than breadcrumbs out there for me.” She will leave the stage, the lights, the applause. She will leave a Broadway line wondering how to replace her, a performer so perfectly conditioned to their needs. But they will wait. They will wait for another star, another soul to trap in their endless cycle.

As for her, she will set out on a journey. She will wander far and wide, searching for what she has never known. The map to her quest lies in breaking the chains, stepping out of the box, and silencing the voices that have clouded her. She will meet others along the way, checkpoints in her journey. And every time, she will face the temptation to perform again, to fall back into the cycle. But she will resist. She will ask, bravely, “I am looking for bread.”

Some will guide her forward. Others will try to trap her in their own small stages. The choice will be hers: to break the cycle or to continue it. And in that choice lies her freedom.

She may not know what bread looks like, but she knows she deserves it. She knows she is worth more than the crumbs she has been given. And that knowledge is the first step toward finding herself. Toward finding home. Toward becoming whole.

…she journeys on…