Human beings are complex, much like characters in a play. Everyone is built off the situations and opportunities embedded in the plot line of life, with each choice creating a new moment: a spectacular scene. But as humans, we believe that searching for a purpose is how a life is lived to its fullest. Perhaps searching is all one can do, playing an eternal game of cat and mouse without finding that “person” they always wanted to be. This is false. Life, in simpler terms, is creation; the script is written in choices, the lyrics are sung in tones and the character is created through the weathered years of its existence. My character developed on a simple, black stage.
I remember an audience of lights illuminating a hazy canvas, generating an overcast of shadows and blurry faces. The speakers were shouting the “Overture” impatiently, and I didn’t know if it was the bass or my heart beating against my chest. My back itched against the curtain and my fists were clenched; I hadn’t set foot onto the stage, yet my palms had already begun to sweat. A minute was left. Exactly sixty seconds until I must transform into a whole new person and perform my best to entertain faces and strangers alike. My adrenaline sparked as my cue appeared, and I drew a final, hopeful breath. “Look how far you have come,” I told myself, “isn’t it amazing?” It was amazing. And for the first time, I let it feel amazing, because that night I fully developed the plot to my lifetime story.
A little girl dreams of the day she makes her “Rockstar debut,” but I never thought fourteen years later I’d be forming a career path towards that dream. Music had always pulled at me in a way I cannot explain, but I struggled with finding myself and who I wanted to be because I felt this imaginary burden of pleasing “the system.” I blurred the lines between being successful and happy, which I could compare to a lonely Purgatory. Sure, teens find difficultly in choosing their pathway throughout high school, but my confidence in who I wanted to be was overwhelmed with the idea of who I should be: a vet, a lawyer, a doctor, a “success.” I was in the middle of a war between my head and my heart.
Then I met a young woman. Both of us were new to high school in one way or another, and she taught a class that I saw only as an extra elective to pick up on my way down these next four years. Dramatic Fundamentals was an introduction to the dramatic arts: basically, acting. Although I appreciated and respected the arts in general, I never expected a major turn of events in my storyline at this point (again, pre-law was the plan). This woman, my director and my mentor, and her small class changed my life completely. I remember the day she pulled me aside and talked to me about theatre. She saw some sort of potential in me and convinced me to audition for the next musical. I did. I made it in. And for the first time, I had created the person I wanted to be and the person I should be.
Time continued, and with it did my passion for the theatrical arts. I continued to grow as a performer with experience and constructive criticism. Hard work and determination humbled me with leadership, and the unconditional support and love of the troupe opened a whole new form of confidence and compassion into my life.
Today I continue that newly paved road of clarity, and I graciously remember the lesson “Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself,” because searching for an unrealistic vision of who I should be is not a pathway to success. Life is creation; it is a beautiful character development based off the sights we see, the things we do and the people we love. I am a human being, and I chose to create a story that will begin with a closed curtain and will end with a final bow.
