Cliff-Jumping

This week for the first, maybe forever in the my life, I said the words I dreaded to say: I don't know what I want to do with my life. I said it out long to multiple people in my life. My roommates, my voice coach, my friends, my family. There are a few people I have yet to tell but surprisingly enough those people aren't particularly close to me. They are people in the theatre department and old friends I haven't talked to in a while. Because, as young as I could remember, I wanted to be a singer or performer at least. I wanted to tell stories. I played make believe for years far past the age of my contemporaries. I longed to be that dancer girl who could move her body that way. All roads led to musical theatre. However, sometimes in acting class, I had this secret disdain for acting. I don't know why that was. Sometimes, I loved it and when it went well I was so happy but not to far into to it I was getting annoyed. I wanted to do musical theatre specifically and maybe the issue was that I wasn't in a musical theatre program and was fearing the judgment of other people around me. I also wouldn't be entirely too surprised if the real source of the problem is my feel of failure or my own fear of my genuine emotions. I know most genuine hidden emotions aren't pretty (there's a reason why they're hidden) but these emotions aren't pretty people. I don't know honestly what happened because when I look back at my short life the best moments were almost always regarding musical theatre with the supplementing moments regarding boys, but you know that doesn't count. The simple truth of the matter is the midst of not getting into a show I wanted, I am more confused than ever. 

 

My first response was, like always, it's fine. I'll do a crap ton of over things. More dance classes. start piano lessons, Take improv classes. But as the storm began to settle, doubt crept in. I believe in God and I believe in a destiny and I can't help but to ask, if this is my destiny. I have been confirmed by many people of improvements and of perseverance. I have also been forgotten and brushed aside and had my scary acting teacher tell me I had no talent for acting and that no matter how hard I tried I could never be an actor.  And that's its fine I got an acting concentration because it won't even say that on my diploma. What a nice man. 

I have been searching to find a remedy, a solution to this problem. It would be easy to say to just leave it alone. If I don't think this is right for me, move on but for some reason I can't seem to. It's like I'm standing on a cliff and to jump would be like jumping into a different career path, for whatever reason, for a different passion or from a fear of failure but it always feel like someone is holding by the back of securely tight shirt and they won't let me jump. Given I believe in destiny and God, it's not hard to imagine who I think that "someone" is. But if what I am meant to do is off the cliff, below in the whatever it may be down there how will I get there if I can't jump. And maybe this is idealistic and naive and maybe I'm just dreaming a little too big, but the only thing that seems to be a plausible solution is to move. To go someplace new and see what jumping off different cliffs get me. The best cliff I know is the cliff diving of cliff diving. So here I go: I'm moving to New York. Somewhere in between Fall 2016 and Winter 2017. It may seem weird to say that it's the best idea I have but sometimes its not enough to just dip your toes in the water. Even more so, I don't want to waste time testing the waters.