What do you want to be when you grow up?
Monday, February 11, 2008
I never got to have a meeting at the career center at Northwestern. Or rather, I should clarify that I chose not to. I had no interest. While the rest of my friends were busy going on recruiting meetings and spending time planning their futures, I was dedicated to a life in the thee-ah-tah. I was busy getting headshots taken and perfecting my resume, acquiring monologues and focusing on subscribing to Backstage.
In the fall of 2000, as I cartwheeled across the floor of Chelsea Studios at a callback for the National Tour of Annie Get You Gun!, something snapped in my head as my hands hit the floor and my legs defied gravity.
"I don't think I want to cartwheel my way across the stage 8 shows a week," one of my little me's said. "I don't think I want to live out of a suitcase and bus. I wouldn't give my right arm (the one I'm balancing on in mid-air right now) to get this job."
And in slow motion, my legs flipped to the other side of my head and I came up stunned and staring at the leotard-clad girls lining the wall across from me.
"I don't think I even want this job."
I finished the combination with less determination to make them notice me, less concern about making sure that I was a character and that I was shining through. I finished the combination and walked across the room to lean against the bar with my friends. Normally, this was the part where I would intently watch each group following mine, picking out the girl (or maybe there would be 2) that had "it" - the sparkle, the indescribable, the whole package. I would study her execution, knowing that I could learn something from everything she did.
But this day, I was sitting there saying to myself, "What the hell can I learn from her cartwheel? I point my toes, I go up and down with grace and with ease. What do I need to learn from watching anyone cartwheel?"
My mind wandered to the 250 girls cut earlier that morning who would have given their right arm to be able to cartwheel across the floor 8 shows a week. But I wanted more. I wanted to stop being chosen and I wanted to start choosing. I wanted to make new things, not regurgitate old. I wanted to be inspired and I wanted to inspire. This wasn't going to do it for me. I took off my character shoes and I went home and started writing letters to the producers that inspired me...and that was the end of that career.
But not the end of the theeeeeeeee-ah-tah. I simply moved from being onstage to off, from performing someone else's work to working to get someone else's work performed. And when I moved to LA three years ago, I thought there would be great opportunities for me. I was going from the small confines of the theater world to a booming culture. I saw climbing the corporate ladder written all over my forehead. I could be creative and get to the top! I was rearing to go.
But somewhere along the way, my motor slowed way down. Somewhere along the way, I realized I didn't want to climb another rung. Somewhere along the way, that creativity part got zapped out of me and I was all corporate culture. Somewhere along the way, the fat man came and sat on my chest.
And now the same 21 year-old who snubbed the career center because she was going to be creative is a 31 year-old going to exactly that place to help her find it again. I don't know what went on in that career center then but I can tell you this -- there's something invigorating and exciting and...alive about dissecting yourself and finding out what you're made of and what you're made for. There's something inspiring about understanding what makes you run. There's something revitalizing about rediscovering who you are and how that translates into the world. And there's something rousing about realizing that possibilities are endless.
I feel like I'm a little girl again. I can be anything I want to be when I grow up.
Posted byMeesh-elle my Belle at 5:18 PM
Labels: life lessons
I've only recently discovered that there comes an age when "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is no longer a question that you're allowed to ask. There are no longer so many possibilities and opportunities in front of you, but rather a path that you much follow because it's the one you already laid for yourself.
Good for you for starting over, and apparently not being afraid of it.