People ask me how rehearsals are going for my Fringe show.
The short answer?
I’m trying to fit thousands of words into a brain that occasionally walks into a room and forgets why it went there. Or forgetting someone’s name as soon as I shake their hands.
The show is made up of an opening monologue, six acts, and a closing monologue. Together, it’s roughly five thousand spoken words, dozens of stories, countless transitions, and more bubble cues than any sane person should attempt to remember.
What surprises me isn’t how hard memorizing is.
It’s what memorizing reveals.
When I first wrote the show, I thought I was simply telling stories.
A childhood in Trinidad.
Moving to Texas.
Starting over in Canada.
Burnout.
Travel.
Rediscovering joy.
But repetition changes your relationship with a story. The hundredth time you say a line, you stop hearing the words and start hearing the truth behind them. You notice patterns. You notice wounds. You notice lessons that were hiding in plain sight.
Some lines arrive effortlessly. Others refuse to stay put. It’s almost as if certain memories want to be remembered while others still need a little convincing.
And then there are the moments when I completely blank.
Standing alone in rehearsal, staring into space, wondering whether the next line is about Trinidad, Texas, basketball, burnout, or karaoke. Usually it’s karaoke.
The funny thing is that remembering lines isn’t really about memory. It’s about trust. Trusting that the story is already inside you. Trusting that if you’ve lived it, the words will eventually find their way home.
Twelve days before curtain call, I’m still forgetting lines. Still rehearsing. Still making mistakes. But maybe that’s part of the process too.
After all, this show isn’t really about remembering every word.
It’s about remembering who I am.