At the end of this school year, I discovered that I am on track to graduate from college next year. In other words, I’m on track to graduate in three years. That’s great news for me and my student loans (which I have to start paying earlier than anticipated). However, it raises a lot of uncertainties. No longer will I have the security of being in school. My career as a student will end.
Something I’ve learned over the past year is that life will surprise you. There are paths that are waiting for you to take them, paths you never even considered. You will end up in a place you didn’t expect, and your career specifically will be a twisted and winding road. I’d like to hold my dreams close to me in some way, to continue my art, although I know it gets more and more challenging to do so when you no longer have the resources of an institution like a school. Like I’ve said before, art can be the cure to burnout, so I believe that in my future, I’d like to keep that outlet. I think I might need to keep it as an outlet.
You can plan ahead for a lot of things, but when it comes to your whole life, there are a lot of times when you just have to trust that the breeze behind your back will push you in the right direction. Sometimes it pushes you in, what at the time feels like the wrong way, but leads you to a better end path.
To truly be on the brink of adulthood is a frightening thing. You realize some situations allow you to have a lot of control over your life and what will happen next, but a lot leave you with little to no control. I know for me, that’s been the hardest thing. Applying to jobs, submitting pitches, and knowing that there’s little I can control in that regard. But how I prepare, how I react, and how I cope are all things I can control. That fact is probably the only thing that keeps me together half of the time.
Of course, there’s always something reassuring about the fact that this isn’t an experience I alone am going through. Other people are too, so there’s never a lack of people to talk to and relate to. There’s never a lack of stories to share and tell. That’s my pitch, always. I’m a storyteller, and there are so many different ways to tell stories than we think.
I still have one year left, too. Hopefully, I’ll be working another internship which opens doors for me to unexpected opportunities. Hopefully, the show I submitted to direct, and was so scared of having perceived, which I now am convinced will be my magnum opus, will be approved, and I’ll get to direct my first full-length show. I will be assistant directing a mainstage next year as a major requirement. And I also will have a life outside of this. I’ll have friends to hang out with and talk to, and maybe even I’ll have a real hobby.
The idea of learning how to play piano is becoming more and more enticing on the days I work from home, with an old piano waiting to be sold next to me. That would be fun.
Maybe I’ll go on adventures too. Add a little spontaneity to my rather routine and well-planned-out life. To be bold is something I’ve always aspired to be, but every year I feel as if I never quite reach the boldness threshold I want. I think that might be something I will always struggle to reach, but we all need some direction to grow.
My biggest fear will always be losing my craft as I get older. It gets harder to find opportunities and things such as surviving in the current economy and society throw constant curveballs. But art can be used to escape and teach, especially theatre. The many different movements I learned about in Theatre Histories II, which argued what the purpose of theatre was for a multitude of different reasons, prove this fact.
No matter what happens, I know where my youth was spent and where my passions lie.
Signed.
J.F
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