If you asked me, a couple months ago why I never got involved with theater in college before this year, I would have told you something like this:
“Well, when I was a freshman, I went over to the theater because a professor had encouraged me to get involved. I totally wanted to; I loved doing stage crew in high school. So I told them I was interested in doing stage crew, and it turned out that at Gannon there really is no stage crew, everyone involved with the theater has to act. They asked me if I wanted to audition for the show they were currently casting, I stuttered ‘no’ and pretty much ran away and that was it.”
As you may know from an earlier article I wrote, this year I did audition for a show, was cast and had a fantastic time. Along the way, I discovered there certainly are theater people at Gannon who only work backstage.
The mystery: what really happened freshman year?
Recently the director for the next show emailed me asking if I’d be interested in helping out with it. When I saw her name in my email, I suddenly remembered I had emailed her before, way back when I was trying to get involved with the theater freshman year. I decided to search her name in my email and see if I could find out why nothing came of that.
I scrolled all the way back, and there was her original email asking about my experience with stage crew: she needed someone to run the soundboard for a show. I read my reply, cringing at how negatively I talked about my qualifications. Then I read on through the conversation– and found that she had actually given me lots of idea for how to get involved with the theater program at Gannon, including specific dates, clear instructions to places and directly telling me that she was so glad that I was interested, complete with smiley emoticon.
Thinking back to that time, I had a sudden feeling I knew exactly what had happened. I opened up my journal from that time and searched out the date of the email conversation.
I was exactly right. Days after that conversation, I found out that a guy I liked was planning to date someone else. My self-esteem, I can tell from the journal entries, was shot. So was any interest in trying new activities. My past self goes on and on about this guy and about how awful I felt; from my journal entries you’d never even know I’d been to the theater.
This information on the guy in question was delivered to me by way of Facebook. This is why they tell you to be careful with your social media consumption: it can be hazardous to your finding a creative outlet, a fun way to spend time and a new group of people to spend that time with. These were all things that would have been very beneficial to my mental health.
The lesson: When a door opens, try walking through and seeing what happens, instead of letting the giant distraction insulting you from behind hold you back.
I could tell, at the time, that was I was doing was not good for me. (That’s probably the most frustrating part, looking back on it!) I just wish I’d taken my own advice.
If you’re reading this, I hope you will. Please don’t let rejection from anything (especially romantic rejection) convince you you’re not good enough for anything else.
By the way, this time around, I returned to my email, wrote back to the director and told her that I’d love to be a part of the show.
