Kelsey Ledbury

This episode of Friendless is presented by the Saskatchewan Podcast Network. My sweet babies welcome back once again to Friendless the show about me your host, James Avramenko, and my Sisyphean attempt to rid myself of every friend I've ever made on Facebook. One interview at a time. This week, I have another guest from the way way back times of early 2000s Calgary High School, Kelsey Ledbury. Kelsey is a former stage manager and current antagonist on my Instagram feed, where she posts about her life on Vancouver Island, like I dream of being able to do, we talk about reevaluating dreams, when the show shouldn't go on, running away to paradise artists with jobs, how to make friends at work, and singing Monty Python, in science class, all that and so much more. It's a great episode. And I'm not gonna waste a single moment, delaying you getting to it. So just lay back, enjoy my interview with Kelsey library here on fretless. So I guess, I guess where I'm really interested to start hearing your story is, is if we were to end it with you moving to Victoria, and that's something I'd love to discuss. But if we were to sort of end the story of you getting to Victoria, and pick it up, maybe somewhere around like, where we knew each other from high school, what's your journeys been like in the last, you know, God, it's been over, you know, 15 years? So I realized this is not a condensable answer, necessarily. But what's your journey been, like, sort of weaving in and out of the theater community,

it's definitely been an interesting journey. And definitely iterations of myself for sure, I think that we, we are young and idealistic, and we throw ourselves into this version that we think we're going to be. And then as we live through that, and work through that, and figure out what works for us and what doesn't, then we need to sort of find room in our lives to realize that, you know, maybe something that doesn't take up 110% of my time, is something that I, you know, want to spend my life doing. Sometimes I do, you know, just want a paycheck, and to be able to take a vacation guilt free. And there was also something super interesting about the life of theater, when it came down to connections that you make were six month contracts at a time, I'm not sure if your situation might have been different working at like working at a lunchbox theater for a season or two. Whereas I was freelance. So every contract was different every six weeks was a different crew every six weeks was five new Facebook friends. And whether or not I stayed in contact with them, you know, kind of played out in the history of it. But I definitely reached a point where if I don't love it anymore, why am I killing myself to do it? And I wasn't finding I wasn't finding the fulfillment that we were promised. The sacrifice would you know, that, you know, you sort of think that the sacrifice will, will pay you back. And in some cases, it just doesn't. And sometimes you just need to pay rent and, you know, get health care.

I do worry that, worry maybe is the wrong word. I wonder if the way that the industry was sold to us is what set us up to be unsatisfied with it. Because I think that we are sort of sold this idea that we'll go through theater school and we'll come out and we'll, we'll be validated and we'll be loved. And we'll have accolades, and we'll get cast in shows. And that's what's going to make us feel satisfied and at peace with our existence. And I and I worry that too many theaters, students and art students in general, are more in need of therapy than they are in need of art school.

Oh, my Gosh

Right? you know, and I and something I've been thinking a lot about recently is like, like, just that is this idea of like, do you want to be a theatre artist? Or are you just feeding off the validation that you're receiving from it? And and I think

that's really interesting. That's really interesting, because I recently in recent years, have been going to some therapy and have been uncovering all of this latent anxiety and depression that I have. I was just too busy to deal with, you know, and that's so, so sad that it takes having to hit like a super dark place to have to access that like care for yourself. But I think it truly does like, the interesting thing is my partner, my current partner, I've been with him for four and a half years, he went through the Mount Royal theater program with me. That's where we met. And he finished the program and quit the arts and went into aviation. And one of our instructors said, after class, we were at the Lib at Mount Royal. And we were sharing a plate of nachos and our instructors started to eat, you know how they make the sour cream out of a bowl, like the chip, the bowl is made out of chips.

Okay, yeah.

He was he was eating the bowl. And our instructor said to the table, you never know in theater, you never know when your next meal is coming. So you just and that moment for my partner was his his, you know, shoe dropping that, oh, if I can't make a living off this, what's the point, and we were on the technical stream. So there's even sort of that, that removal of ego or that sort of, it takes away that big leap that the performers have to take. And even with that type of security, he thought, No, I'm fucking out of here,

Well think about, there's a whole thing about with tech theater, where it's, your, your job is best done when nobody notices you. So you really can't feed off of validation in that stream,

which, which to sort of folded back to therapy is, is being a stage manager and having that, like, if you are noticed, you have fucked up big time, set my nose to a place that I can't let myself off the hook for certain little things. Because I spent so many years trying to be silent in the dark and perfect, because it all rested on my shoulders. And it's funny, like talking about things now I'm like, oh, theater really fucked me up more than it did good. You know, I didn't have the opportunity for artistic expression, or catharsis or any of that, due to the nature of the sort of technical role so

and I, I worry that I worry that it ruins the capacity to just be creative, because I think that it's so important for, you know, for anyone and everybody to have a creative style outlet, and whatever that may be. And I and I, I think it sucks that so many of us get, you know, get trapped in this cycle of I need a living. So I have to either decide to live creatively or live, you know, quote unquote, pragmatically. Right. And, and it sucks that we have to decide one stream or the other and we can't find this balance, because I do think I do think it's really important to have creative outlets, I also think it's important to have the stability to eat every day. And, and, and that's, that's the thing that really blows about our culture is that we are, we're taught and ingrained that it's one or the other. It can't be both, you know, and yeah, and I do think that technology and things like social media have have affected that for the better. But I do think that it's, it's a new set of skills that aren't being taught, they certainly weren't being taught when I was in university. And and they're, they're more about just intuitively being raised within these, you know, dynamic technological systems than they are about actually like, you know, you can't go to school to be a YouTuber kind of thing. Right? And nor nor should you. Like, if you want to be on YouTube, don't go to fucking University. What a waste of time that would be.

Yeah, no kidding.

But, so, so when you when you decided to pick up stakes to move from Calgary to Victoria, what, what sort of took you out to the island? Because that place is, I mean, that place is absolute fucking paradise. But I also, you know, when I when I left the island, I definitely felt sort of like, Oh, what is it? I you know, I sort of felt like it was it was a place that I could never leave if I stayed because it's almost like a little garden of Eden.

a little black mirror bubble. Yeah, absolutely. No, I so when I sort of exited the arts world, I got some jobs in insurance and, and with most things, when you must be good at everything, I just got as many designations and as many, you know, courses as I could, which got me a good foothold in insurance, like a decent living. So when my partner wanted to, so my partner was military, and he left the military but still wanted to do something that contributed. So he found this opportunity working on search and rescue aircraft out here at the comox Air Force Base. And so he got this opportunity he spent, you know, a year or two training in Europe and that was difficult. But we knew at the end of it, it meant we got to move to paradise. So I, I ended up finding a job in insurance out here. And I think it kind of speaks back to that, when we're talking about the arts, it's like, now I'm just making a living so I can live in paradise. You know, I don't, I wouldn't say that I quote unquote, care about commercial insurance. I know a lot of people have a lot of things to say about the insurance industry. And I may or may not agree, but but the fact is, is that it pays my bills and it keeps me healthy. And it, you know, lets me go to the doctor and speak to my therapist and all those things.

And there is something to be said, for the stability, you know, something that we're not taught very often. And something that you find out in sort of researching is a lot of the great artists, especially the last century, but I mean, you go, you could go as far back as you want. And you could basically find that the vast majority of what we consider to be great artists usually weren't professionally, artists, usually what they were was they had a job. And then they had a creative outlet on the side that eventually took root and, took them off. But you know, I always think about someone like, you know, Frank O'Hara, who has his famous poetry collection, his lunch poems, and he literally wrote them. The reason they're called that is because he wrote them on his lunch break when he was a lawyer, you know, or like, or like William Carlos Williams, who's like the, the sort of the pinnacle of minimalist poetry. The reason he did that is because he would write poems on little slips of paper that he would find when he was a doctor. He was a surgeon, you know, and so he didn't have space to write. So he could only write these tiny little poems and, you know, so it's like, people you know, something like poetry, which we we have in our head for some reason as like the long suffering starving poet, but it's like, that's only if you you're only a starving poet, if you decide to a romanticize toxicity? and B remove yourself from being an active member of society, which, which you can do like these. I'm not saying there's a good or a bad response, but like, you choose to do that part of it, you know, and, and, and you can still get a job and write a poem, right?

Yeah. And I think what you what you hit was key, there is the romanticize, like romanticizing the toxicity of the industry, you know, the starving artist is the starving artist, so I deserve to be successful or or whatever with it. I can remember working with a theatre company during the Calgary flood, and the whole city was in a state of emergency. And this one company just sort of said, Well, I don't care, we're still gonna put the show on. And I just looked at them thinking like who's coming to your show? This is bigger than you like the huge the absolute hubris that like our art will prevail over like a natural disaster. It's like no one gives a shit about your little play, when their home is flooding. So this idea that well, we we work really hard on this and the show must go on and and it is the epitome of our artistic bullshit, whatever it is, like whatever you're trying to say with it. It's it's not that bit, you know, it's just a play. It's just a poem. It's and it that's not to belittle anyone's work, but it doesn't mean that you, you know, I got shingles at 25 that didn't make the play. I was working on any better or worse, because I worked. I worked myself to the point of having shingles. Yeah, you know, that was my own, not looking out for myself.

So for you, how would you define friendship?

Yeah, that's a tough one. I was giving it a lot of thought. And I think you you sort of touched on it just then that there's no real definition that we could all hold to be true. I think for me, it's definitely somebody, a friend would be somebody that I could show an unfiltered facet of myself to, you know, you've got people at work that you're friendly with, but your friend is the one that you can bust into their office and go oh, my God, Cheryl is such a bitch. Like, your friend, your friend is someone that you can actually let it filter down with and know that you know that your true, whatever facet of your true self you're showing to them will be received, I don't know safely is the right word, but it'll just be accepted and received and often reflected back at you you know, the things that you find that caused a friendship and another is often commonality. So if we both hate Cheryl from accounting, then we could probably find something else to connect on and, and be friends over. But I think it's different for between each relationship as well. You know, the way you behave in front of one person isn't the way you would behave in front of another group. And I think that that's okay. That much like the definition of friendship, people aren't just one definition of themselves. So I find that And it's been interesting in moving to kind of touching back on that is, how do you make friends if I can't spend any time with people, you know, I've, I've been lucky enough that I, my office has opened the office that I transferred to here, I'm actually up in Nanaimo instead of Victoria, but the office I'm in is open every day, I get to get dressed and drive into an office and interact with about a dozen other people every day. And that's been wonderful for my mental health after spending, you know, four months working out of the back room of my apartment. But oh my gosh, it's been so great just to shower every morning and pick an outfit it really has.

Honestly, that's probably one of the and I know, this is such like a vapid complaint. But honestly, that is such a hard element for me by working from home, I'm I've been every month I've steadily been losing my will to live. Because like, I'm like, why wake up.

we all we all thought that working in our jammies was just so great. And when I moved and I got to get up and get dressed every morning and take a modicum of pride in my appearance before leaving the house. You know, it just it felt good to feel good again. So that's been great. But that tangent to say that how do I make friends with these people that I'm interacting with? If I can't go ask them for a beer after work? I can't, you know, so slowly. But surely I've definitely found friends, this new company, but only at work.

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I'm ready.

And so I'm fascinated to know, what is your most vivid memory of our friendship?

Okay. And so this also comes with one of those, like, I owe you an apology, because stupid teenagers. But I wonder if you remember this, and I'm sure you don't have any ill will toward me about it. But I definitely feel like I owe you an apology.

Okay, wow.

So get ready for this. Remember grade 10 homeroom science class. You and I, you and I were singing Monty Python penis song. And you got sent to the office by our very conservative science teacher. Do you remember that?

I don't!

So I remember it. Because I remember thinking now as an adult, I should have said something because I started the song. And so I started singing, you know, isn't it? Isn't it awfully good to have a penis? And then you just took it away. And we finished the song. And our science teacher who was very conservative came in and just was absolutely scandalized and sent you directly to the office. And I should like it. Now as an adult. I'm like you showed us at something you were a part of it too. But it's one of those like, I know like you have no ill will about it. But it is one of those like, I started singing a song that got you in trouble. And you got sent to the office. But do you remember it was like you and me and two other people in a little desk pod and not in class?

Yeah. Do you remember that? And I do remember. And I remember being really excited because it was like, because when I, you know, when I moved from junior high to high school, I moved out of French immersion. And so when I showed up at bonus, I had new friends and like there was nobody. And except well there was there was one friend who she actually went to bonus for one day and then transferred out. And then and then there was another one who I wasn't friends with him in junior high. And we weren't friends in high school. So it was like, Oh, I'm fucked, yeah, when I showed up in high school, it was a case of literally feeling like the new kid who just moved into town because all everybody else had transferred from big classes and friends and yeah, right. So I remember that pod being really fun. And I remember being really grateful for like having that little that little group. You know,

yes, I certainly I don't remember a lot of grade 10 but I do remember that little pod. You know that class was fun. That science teacher was great. I like it from what I remember. But yeah, and I think too, it was one of those first times on for my perspective of like, making friends with people outside of those that came from your junior high because Bowness had what three feeder Junior High's and so if if you didn't come from one of those, and even if you did it would, you know, I don't know half the people in the class because they came from somewhere else. So it was really cool to have to have like a little clump of us that were just like fast friends as we say like it didn't take long for us to kind of connect.

Yeah, that's so funny. I you know, cuz it's like, I remember getting sent to the office for the dumbest shit. Yeah, like, I feel like the the only reason that one does and, and it's funny. I have like, half a memory of that. Like, I remember singing it in class. I don't remember getting in trouble though. And I think it's because like, I got in trouble for dumb shit all the time. Yeah, like, really, this is what you're really.

And I was I was thinking about that teacher to that teacher got upset with me for touching my hair. Because she thought that it was like a hygiene thing that I should go to the bathroom if I wanted to adjust my hair. So she was just very, very uptight. I think she's very tightly wound to that one.

But I think she was I think she was young. I think that she was still learning the ropes of teaching. And so I think she was just trying to make sure she maintained authority.

Yeah, and a decorum even though she was quite a bit younger. That's totally that could be. But it's interesting that it's not a theater memory for us. Or at least for me, it was this.

Well, and I was gonna say On the flip side, for me, I just always think about I just, I was thinking about you. And and I can't remember his name. But there was a there was a really tall tech guy. And you guys were just always, like, the you were just always backstage, right? Because we were, you know, you were you were the crew. And so there's no like single example I can think of, but I know, getting into theater, because I actually got into it a little. I only got into it in grade 11 I was in like dance and musical theater. I didn't do actual theater until like 11/12. And so just coming into those, you know, whether it was the one act festivals or the, you know, main stages or anything like that, and it was just always you two backstage it was is great, right?

that's a really fun memory to you know, the theater department at Bowness High School, the years we were there was became such a, such a little and that's I think the energy in the atmosphere that we created for ourselves, there is what drove so many of us to go into the arts professionally, because we thought it would be this this loving, supportive, like place to lift us up. And then whether or not it became that throughout our lives. You know, it every situation is different. But we had such a, I felt like we had such a community in such an energy that like, yeah, we just lived backstage, I remember skipping grade 10 math, for like eight months to go to the tech theater classes, I still passed math with an 80. And I would get home before my mom did so I could erase that voicemail that said that your student had been out of class that day. And I so I got extra credit for being in theater, I passed math without having to attend the class itself. And we just, you know, there's so many of us that just kind of super connected and to this day still run into each other in our lives. And it's great.

That's such a great description of it too, because it really was like a little pod. You know, it really was this beautiful little family and you're spot on it was absolutely the thing that ruined the rest of theatre for me because I was perpetually chasing that feeling of family again, you know. And you know,

what's interesting too, is you and I had a conversation in life about instructors that we've had in times in our lives that we really looked up to that as we grew up, we sort of realized we grew out of those ideas and things like that, but that doesn't blemish the memories I have of the way I felt at the time and and the support I felt from these teachers and things like that. So it really was just this perfect shiny bubble high school really was the time of no cares and you know, everything.

the things that I thought were gonna be problems. word problems like my God, James.

Yeah, the shit that we thought would matter later on in life, oh my god,

fucking hell. With 2021 being what it is, and with the incredible, incredible overwhelming terror that is our existence. You know, I can't help it feel like friendships in all its capacities and in all of its permutations is going to be the thing that keeps us not sane, but alive, going forward. And so I wonder what for you is it gonna take to be a good friend in 2021 and then, however much longer we survive.

This is still something I'm wrestling with being the new the new bird in town and not being able to actually forge new friendships, it is something sometimes my partner and I would just sit down at the end of the day and be like, Oh my god, it's lonely here. Like, at least we have each other because we can't I have cousins that live 15 minutes up the road that we haven't seen in months, simply because, and and I mean, the the nature of the population we live in is a lot of retirees it's very high risk population. So people are very responsive to recommendations, which I think is great, let's, let's keep populace alive, you know, so I don't mind that. But I think it's unfortunately for me does mean a lot of social media and a lot of the one thing I do like about it, and this is such an asshole thing to say is that I can be a passive friend, I can, I can absorb the information about what's going on in people's lives, I can say congratulations at the press of an emoji without having to, you know, really extend my energy because it's all in the palm of my hand. Now, whether or not that's real, it's all I've got, right now. And, and for the foreseeable future. So I have to keep making, you know, keep making the point to make these video calls with friends keep making the point, like when when you and I reached out again, and I just jumped on it was like, these are the days I have off, I have to snap on it. Because it's so easily can become too hard to, you know, lift a finger and have to do another fucking zoom call. And I think it's just the understanding that everything's on fire right now. So that no one has to apologize for not getting back to me, no one needs to apologize for being emotionally unavailable or for not being truthful, or whatever it is like, it's all okay, right now, because it's all awful right now. I think

that's such a fabulous way of putting it. It's like it's all okay, because it's all not okay. I love that. Um, you know, it's it's, I don't know, I don't have an answer to it. Right? Because I, it's why I'm asking people because I'm like, I, I feel like I've been a bad friend for a long time to a lot of people. And, and I'm trying to figure out how to change that. And so for me, it's, for me, it's, it's, it's being available when, you know, when somebody needs you. And a good one. Yeah, right. You know, yeah, so being available and like being available, but also being true to yourself, right? Like, if you can't be available, it's better for you to be withdrawn than it is for you to give something because that just leads to resentment and exhaustion. And

yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Just, you know, it's, it's so much easier said than done. But it's just about knowing yourself and knowing what you need, and then being able to give that when and how you can

Yeah, I like that. I'm the asshole that's like, I get to be lazy with friendships, because you just tell me everything and you're like, I need to be available for those. You know, it's, I think it's definitely both those things. Yeah, I think it's both those things.

And it's a it's a spectrum, right? It's this idea that like, something that's really prevailing in, in social media discourse that I find to be really toxic and reductive is this idea of us versus them. Right? It is, if you are not 100% with me, you are 100% against me, and we have to be really careful how we, how we proceed with these really, really tenuous times. And and I mean, this is not me arguing, like, let's forgive the fascists like, fuck all those people. Yeah, what I'm saying what I'm saying is, like, just because somebody isn't tweeting about every topic doesn't mean they're complicit with it. Right? You know, like, like, sometimes you don't need a hot take. Sometimes you can just be quiet and donate or whatever it might be as sometimes, yes, you know, maybe you're the person who tweets maybe you're the person who donates maybe you're the person who volunteers, maybe you're the person who just listens, you know, like, like, it takes all kinds. And it takes a whole spectrum of existence and behavior to create a community. And that's what I'm trying to do. It's what I'm hoping people are trying to do is to is to have a genuine, authentic, healthy, loving community, you know, yeah. It's not about everyone performing the exact same task the exact same way? It's about it's about being surrounded by the people who collectively lift each other up, right? And yeah, so I just think, you know, I always sum it up of just like, just be easy on yourself. Like, just be nicer to yourself.

Yeah, that's my therapist thing. Like it's okay, cuz things aren't okay. But that's still okay. Like things can not be okay. And that still okay.

Yeah. And you're not a failure for being angry. You're not a failure for being sad. You're not a failure for feeling Not zen, right? Like it's okay to feel all the emotions that we can feel and just what? what you shouldn't say what you have to do, but what will help you is to recognize them and move through them to not get hung up on Yes, right. Like Yes. Yeah, you know, thing yeah

now we're just now we're just going now we're just going down the down the therapy handbook.

Exactly you want to I mean, it's good. Everybody needs therapy. it fucking rules

I agree. 100% we should have more access to mental health services, we should be more vocal about it. Everyone should go and see a therapist, it should be part of your like, it should be like an annual eye exam. You should get like a couple of visits a year with a mental health professional. I think it would do so much for our society. But we'll get there hopefully if we just keep talking about it.

Right, exactly. But before we do that, yeah, do you unfortunately we are at the time we have to do one last thing on social media before we wrap this up. Okay, so I'm pulling up your Facebook. Oh, those are some lovely little mushrooms.

Ah, it's so beautiful on the island. Little cuties.

Love it. All right, here we go. Kelsey Ledbury. Yes. We are no longer Facebook friends.

Nice.

It feels good, right. Oh, yeah. And that's it. Thank you once more to Kelsey for joining me on the show. It was an absolute pleasure to catch up. If you liked the episode and want to support the show, please be sure to review it on Apple podcasts or wherever else you listen, it goes so far and helping me out. Or you could always share the links and let your friends know that this is a show worth checking out. Because God damn it it is. Be sure to follow friendless on all the social medias at friendlesspod and if ou have any questions, omments, you want to have a fun tory about Facebook you want to hare with me, feel free to mail me anytime, friendlessp d@gmail.com. Be sure to sign u for the newsletter through t e link in the show notes. Once a month I am sending out reading l sts, articles and exclusive w iting you won't find anywhere e se. This month had a wicked g od reception and you won't w nt to miss the next one. All t is of course is ramping up to e en more content that is coming d wn the line with the revamped w bsite and patreon that is soon t launch. I'm almost ready to g t it all rolling. And I really c n't wait to share it with y all. But it's it's just taking a few more tweaks. There's tons m re coming soon. And I am so so e cited to share it. But as a ways, let's not get ahead of o rselves because that is then t is is now. So for now, I want t wish you all a great week f ll of creativity and your fair s are of joy. I want to say I l ve you and I will catch you n xt time. Fun and safety y'all