Today, I just got back from theatre rehearsal. It was the first rehearsal I had been to in the last eight months.

Let me backtrack a bit. Four years ago, when I was a (very scared) freshman, one of the first things I assigned up for was stage crew. To be more exact, the theatre stage crew. It had been something I wanted to do for the longest time ever since high school. And when I came to Villanova University, I finally started doing what I always wanted to do.

The first two years in stage crew were my favorite years. Sure, I was still very quiet and timid, but I did have friends in there. Or at least people I could talk to without feeling too awkward. Along with that, I was learning how to do sound for theatre.

And then my junior year of college started. I'm not quite what happened over the summer, but something must have happened because suddenly, stage crew, tech, whatever you prefer to call it, the actors and those outside of tech, they didn't really seem to appreciate the work we put in. To be more exact, I started to feel excluded from the whole musical theatre group simply because I wasn't as outgoing as them and because I was a techie. But still, I held onto the group. I didn't join for the people, after all- I joined because I wanted to do tech. I wanted to and loved doing sound for the shows.

And then the spring semester of my junior year happened. I won't go into too much detail, but let's just say, even though I had three years worth of experience with sound and with the organization, the people I was working with didn't give me the respect or the trust I deserved. I ended up crying twice because of the stress of that show and when I tried to let someone there know I needed support, they didn't take it seriously. It also didn't help that most of my friends from earlier either had graduated or weren't working on this particular show.

That's when I quit the organization I had put so much time and effort into over the years. It was detrimental to my mental health- if I stayed, despite loving the work I did there, I would have still been miserable.

So what's the point of this story? Sometimes no matter how much you love an activity, the people really do make or break the experience. Sometimes, even though you might really love doing something, the people around you may make you hate it at the moment. In those times, you should take a step back from it, take a step away from those people. In that time, you'll remember why you loved doing that activity so much you'll want to do it again, despite the memories of before. No person has a right to make something that you love doing miserably for you.

And if you love that thing enough, you'll find some other way to do it. Not with the people from before, but better people. I know did. I found a different theatre club, who needed techies for their show.

And now I'm back. Doing exactly what I love with the right people.