Student Blog: Some Things Stick With You

There has never been a time in my life where performance and art has not followed me. As a young young child, music filled my life. I started learning the guitar when I was about five years old, and by the time I was ten I had probably written enough real songs to make an album. My father was a touring musician for much of my childhood. I grew up just blocks from an annual music festival, and spent my early summers sitting in the park outside listening to the bands play. In the night time, my father locked himself in his makeshift closet-turned laundry room-turned office to play the keyboard and sing. He would sing Norah Jones, and The Grateful Dead, and the Beatles, and mourn his “better days” as a touring musician. In that closet I imagine that for a moment it was just him and his music, and a long gone crowd in his head who didn’t know him, or his band, or his songs, but cheered nonetheless. And while he played, I would sit silently alone in my bed late into the night, mouthing the lyrics to songs I knew by heart before I could even properly speak. I also grew up in dance. I was enrolled in ballet class and dance classes pretty much from the moment I could walk, and fell in love. From the time I started dancing to the time I stopped regular dance classes during the pandemic, I dreamed of being a professional ballerina. Probably as a natural combination of my first two loves, theater caught me early. My mother was a costumer and had loved theater her entire life, and made a point of introducing it to me young. I began acting in second grade. My first ever show was a production of Into the Woods, where I played the narrator. Theater filled my life so quickly and completely that even now, halfway through my BFA in theater, I sometimes stop to look around and am met with a wave of shock that I've gotten where I am.

I often wonder where I would be without the art that surrounded my life. Despite everything that has changed about me, the things that have stuck have been the arts. No matter what, I've always been creative. No matter where or with who, I've always loved theater. I will always find myself in songs, and dance will always be my first real passion. No matter what vision I have for my future the arts will always play a huge part in it. These are the things that I know to be true about myself, and they are the things that I can count on to be consistent. For me, theater and music has rooted in my life the same way that a Best Friend does; consistent, trustworthy, and present. I don’t have to be scared that my passions will leave me. Honestly, I don’t think I could stop caring about these things if I never heard another song or show again. 

For a long time the subconscious commitments I had made were incredibly nerve wracking. I’ve always been scared of change; scared of growing up and changing who I am, scared of my life changing, and of losing the things I care about so much. But the main thing I've learned through countless schools, friends, experiences, and passions is that the people will come and go, life will change, and you will change, but some things will always stick. The things that bring you joy, community, and life will stay with you. I have changed my goals in theater so many times, started and stopped writing songs and creating different things. But my biggest comfort in life is that no matter where I am, no matter who I am, my first loves will always be there with me.