In my junior year of high school, I experienced depression for the first time. Little did I know, it would stick around and become a friend in the coming years. Was it a good friend? Heck no. It stabbed me in the back more times than I can count. It always left a numbing pain and a longing to be somewhere that wasn’t: here.

At the time, I didn’t know I was an artist. I didn’t know I was at all creative or worthy of making anything good. I didn’t know that artists just like me felt the same way I did and that was just part of feeling things the way we do, differently. I knew I was a freak of nature, a zombie walking around with a smile on my face, my friends oblivious to my pain. Only later would I realize that depression was the very thing that opened the door to the world of creativity I now call home.

They say theater makes society examine itself like a mirror would. For me, discovering theater taught me that I wasn’t alone. Somehow, through song and dance and a memorized script, I learned to love that I wasn’t alone in my heart’s desires, my feelings, and my pain. There were characters in plays that were just like me.

I could relate to J.D. from "Heathers: the Musical," who sang (in an anecdote about a Slurpee):

Suck on that straw,

Get lost in the pain.

Happiness comes

When everything numbs.

Who needs cocaine?

Freeze your brain.”

(Granted, J.D. is a homicidal murderer, but that’s beside the point.)

I could relate to Christian from "Moulin Rouge" when he felt so deeply he sang through tears:

“Why does my heart cry?

Feelings I can’t fight.”

I mean, I’m not so similar that I’m in love with a prostitute, but you get my point, right?

This relatability is what called me to pursue theatre, and once I did, I realized that there are so many artists that feel just like me, right here at TLU. There are so many of us who believed we were freaks before we found what we were meant to do. The feeling of emptiness we all felt inside was because something was missing. And once I discovered theater and creating my own art and expressing myself through acting, I realized that the emptiness inside was just waiting to be filled with beauty that I had yet to create. And when the feeling comes back around, as it always does, I know its time to pick up my paintbrush and start creating again.

So, if you feel empty, don’t ignore that little nudge in the midst of all your numbness to let yourself feel and express yourself. You never know whose life you might change. It could be your own, or someone else’s. You don’t know who you might meet that feels the same way as you. Whether it is through art or something else, you never know what masterpiece you might create.