The short version: yeah screw the short version

This message is for those of you who may have been waiting for a response from me. I did my best to make sure all of the balls were out of my court but I’m at the point where I need to send this message out. The short story is that I’m having a little trouble with bandwidth right now and I’m going to be heads down until January 22nd, and if that’s a good enough explanation for you then scroll no further and I’ll talk to you in the new year. ❤️

Like, you can close this tab now.
H.P.

Or keep scrolling.

THE LONGER VERSION:

This is such a weird and extraordinary circumstance. A dear friend of mine who has battling cancer for a while is now terminally ill and she made arrangements to fly to Switzerland on January 22 where she can die with dignity. She tasked me with hosting/designing/choreographing her Celebration of Life which will be held at a venue that can hold 200 people flying in from all over the world, 100 of whom are dancers that I need to choreograph and rehearse two (maybe three) dance numbers with until the event on January 21. (I’m not alone, by the way. Other choreographers are coming in from other parts of the world to choreograph whole other groups of dancers.) After the celebration, we all move to my apartment where my husband and I will be hosting her 50th birthday, the night before she flies to Zurich.

Between work and the holidays, my bandwidth is extremely limited and I’m asking people to give me until January 22nd to be “off-the-grid” while I navigate this.

Thank you,

H.P.

See you after January 22.
H.P.

You’re still here?

“WHY CAN’T YOU JUST GET ON THE PHONE?”

Well, I could get on the phone, but I don’t want to. I’m seeing a therapist during this time just so I don’t go fucking crazy, but that also means I need to limit my interactions. If I can be totally honest, I need to be a little numb during this time. I just had a big talk with one of the coordinators of this Celebration of Life and, in order for us to honor our dying friend’s wish of staying positive and shielding her from tears/grief, we all need to process with each other and not stifle our feelings during this time.

This friend helped me with the Celebration of Life for my dear friend Saville Gambol a few years ago, not long before my father died and I barely scratched the surface with dealing with those emotions. So when this friend asks me to shield her from tears and grief, I have to suck it up whenever I’m around her, planning the event, shooting video for the venue, reviewing dance moves for two (maybe three) dance routines - keeping up with her amazing gallows humor but then running to the bathroom to cry my eyes out before returning to her with a smile. It’s really fucking me up and I’m grateful to have Mark in my life right now to shoulder a lot of this stuff. But even he has a limit, especially as he deals with his own feelings around this - which is why I’m seeing a therapist specifically for December and January.

“BUT I SEE YOU POSTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA!”

As you all know, I have a social media manager now and she’s been awesome about scheduling things for me and managing my communication across multiple platforms. I need for everyone to know that I’m not spending the next few months moping. On the contrary, I’m being the most positive version of myself but it’s going to take some sculpting and curation. I’m also avoiding posting about this Celebration of Life; I’m done with being “the death guy”. Call it fake, whatever. I need to do this in order to make this Celebration of Life happen.

And if you think this is oversharing, have you MET me? All of my movies/music are oversharing LOL. Prove to me that you know who the fuck I am. ;)

I’ll talk to you after January 22 when I’ll be much more myself. ❤️

H.P.