If you did high school theatre, you know that specific feeling of walking out onstage and having the bright lights on you, of hearing the thunderous applause at curtain call, and the rush of nervous energy that only comes with the “no cell phones” announcement before the show. Maybe you knew the stage was your place since childhood, maybe you came into your own in drama club, but no matter how you found that close-knit theatre community – the connection you have with that part of your life is the same.

So often, the arts in high school aren’t held to the same esteem as sports or math and science, but if you participated in any form of the arts you know differently. Theatre, specifically, became a niche. Being a theatre kid was a trademark. If you were a theatre kid, you had to know how to put eyeliner on a confused shaky boy who cannot do it for himself, you have to buy special foundation that makes you look 10 times more orange, and you have to get honest with people who don’t realize how necessary deodorant is when you’re onstage.

But with the way so many conservatory-styled theatre programs are at the college level, oftentimes theatre kids are forced to walk away from their passion once they graduate from high school. If that’s you, if you are a theatre kid at heart who exited stage left after curtain call, never to go back, then there’s something you need to hear.

You belong onstage. You belong with your theatre kid friends, you belong backstage and onstage and everywhere in the vicinity of a theatre. It’s easy to walk away from the person that you were in high school; in fact, I would even encourage doing that. College is a time to grow and learn what other interests you have and decide where you want to go in life (somewhat, anyways). But there is something specific about theatre that keeps you second guessing the fact that now you’re a journalism major or an engineering major, when you could’ve taken a gap year to pursue your passions.

Sometimes you think about how it would have been if you had gone to school for acting, or if you had moved out to New York or LA to “do the acting thing” for a while. You miss that rush of exhilaration that came with curtain call. You miss putting eyeliner on awkward boys. You miss running to change between scenes and getting creative about avoiding sweat stains.

But if you miss the stage the way I think you do, and the way I know I do, you’ll get back there eventually. Maybe you need a couple years to just be yourself outside of the characters that you play, maybe you need to live your life in order to play another life, but you’ll find that theatre kid again. You have to. It’s your obligation as a theatre kid.

Think about that first moment when you realized how much you loved it. Remember standing in your room as a child and practicing your Oscar acceptance speech. Let yourself feel all the feelings that you went through after your last show. Now do something about it.

It could be as simple as doing community theatre, or auditioning for the next student-run production on campus, but acting isn’t something you just walk away from. Don’t let your fears beat you back from getting back on stage. You don’t have to go to a nationally renowned conservatory style theatre school to be the actor you know you can be.

Everyone has different paths in life, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that a theatre kid’s path will always lead them home: to the stage.