I Just Woke Up

Posted December 15th, 2004 by Sean Williams

And it is nearly noon.

There was a time in my life when I really tried to make sure I was well up and out of bed before noon. I had to, because if I didn’t try I would sleep until dinner and then be up all night. I don’t romanticize those times, those were bad times.

Here’s the thing that no-one knew about me and that I never knew about myself during my long tenure in and out of schools. I would rather be working. Yes, I am happy having fun and talking with my friends, sure. And I think I’m probably pretty fun to have at a party, I certainly make the best of it. But there is absolutely nothing that compares to sitting down with a script in front of me, or the “blank page” (although I was born during a time where pages had very little to do with it) and putting in the hours of work.

It was always said of me that I was an underacheiver, that I was lazy. For about two years during my schooling I was in a private school with small class sizes and teachers who, despite their hatred of me, were proud of being teachers and wanted to reach all of their students, even the ones they hated. I certainly didn’t succeed there, I had to take three of my finals again in 7th grade or they were going to hold me back, but by the middle of my second year I was actually thriving a bit. I found acting, I was playing in a string quartet that we put together outside of school, I was playing in a band… that kind of thing.

About five weeks before my report card was to come out, I realized I would make honor roll, so I went to my dad and said “Hey, if I make honor roll, will you buy me a guitar” and he laughed and said, “sure”. When I brouoght home my report card, he said, “Yeah, I just made that deal because I never thought you’d do it.” And that’s just the garden variety shit you have to go through as a kid, I tell that story mostly because it cracks me up, and mostly to show just how far my dad has come in the last twenty years.

But, the problem is that, almost in the same voice, he said, “You screwed up, Sean, because now we know you can do it. All these years you just weren’t trying.” And then when I switched schools and started failing again, the myth was in place. I was lazy, I wasn’t trying. Sure, my next school was Morristown High, were we had armed security guards and I was getting my ass kicked bi-weekly, but even I believed that I didn’t like to work. I started to embrace my own lies.

When I started at Citrus as a member of the Citrus Singers, I still had the chip on my shoulder, I was still a fuck-up, and I’m sure if you asked any of those people now, they would say that I tried to get away with as much as I could. But I learned just how much I love to work. It took me a couple of years, and by then the politics was so bad I had to leave, but I love getting up at 6 in the morning and going to rehearsal.

So. Today. I just woke up. I’ve been working on writing this musical, while at the same time starting rehearsals for a different company’s musical, while trying to meet with agents and send out headshots, while trying to manage a piece of property for our grandmother, while rehearsing four books worth of songs and scheduling the kids who are supposed to record them, while trying (and failing) to keep the house clean and get dinner on the table…

But I swear, I hate that I slept this late. I wish I had gotten up and started working. I needed the sleep, I slept almost 12 hours, you don’t do that if you’re lazy. But I love the work. I totally love it.