This year can only be described as a year of change. Never in my past have I gone through so much introspection (and I introspect a LOT) or so many drastic lifestyle changes. This year was the first time in my life I started trusting myself and listening to my heart, instead of what I thought I “should” be doing. This was the first time that I was actually able to let go of things because I was too scared of change.
One year ago, I was sick, unhappy, stressed, and confused. My anxiety had gotten so bad that I couldn’t eat without feeling nauseous, and I was underweight. I couldn’t go out and enjoy myself and my friends because being around anyone caused severe stress. I had dug myself into a hole of putting pressure on myself: pressure to make something out myself, to reach my potential. Pressure to be successful. I was working a job that made me miserable in order to support a career in a toxic industry, and it was killing me. I was self medicating by overworking myself, living in the adrenaline of a high stress job. But I didn’t think there was a problem, or that I had a problem: despite my misery, I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Isn’t being an artist about making sacrifices?
But then my panic attacks became more frequent and more severe.
So I made the first big change in my life – I actually called a therapist. I actually started seeing her. And I actually started the medication I knew I needed. Slowly, my stomach healed itself. Slowly, I found myself able to eat again. Slowly, I found myself able to be in large groups again, not hiding in the corner, back to being the person I know myself to be.
But it wasn’t enough.
I was in a relationship that wasn’t working anymore, living day to day feeling like we were going through the motions. It was here that the second big change happened – we ended a five year relationship, a relationship of years of cohabitation, and moved away from each other into our own apartments. This was something that needed to happen for both of us: we had stopped growing, and were using each other as a crutch and an excuse.
It was then that I decided that I wasn’t living my life in a way that made me happy. I could go my entire life trying to be an actor, and never being successful, and then what would I have to show for it? The problem was that even when I did find success, I couldn’t see it. I would book a show, but I was just acting in it, so who cares? I would have an audition for a network tv show, but it was just an audition, so who cares? I would understudy at a great theatre, but I was just understudying – what’s the big deal? I would watch my friends move up the ladder, and scroll through my facebook comparing myself to them. Nothing was ever enough. And I realized that I could be the most successful actor in the world, and it still wouldn’t make me happy. Only I could do that.
On a recent international trip I had discovered that traveling was the one thing that I could do that made me happy in the moment. While I was going on adventures, I wasn’t stressing about my career, or being successful, or the future, or my place in the world. I was just living my life, here and now. I had never traveled alone before – terrifying. I had barely traveled out of the country, scared that I would be missing out on career opportunities. And then, suddenly, I stopped caring about all of that.
That’s when I made my third change this year: I decided to drop everything. I quit my job. I got rid of a lot of my stuff. I quit my acting career – I didn’t know for how long, maybe for a few months, maybe forever. I did the opposite of everything I always thought I should do, and did all the things I was always afraid to do. And it’s been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.
Traveling alone has been its own form of therapy. I’ve never had to rely so heavily on myself, but discovering that I can in fact handle it has made me feel strong and independent. I’ve never had the opportunity to meet so many people from all over the world, to learn about different cultures, start learning bits and pieces of new languages, start recognizing accents. Staying in hostels is making me confident in myself and my abilities to make friends and make other people feel comfortable around me. I’m letting myself open up to not only friends, but to the more than that. I fall in love at least once a week. I’m learning to say yes to things that I’m scared of, and no to things that I truly don’t want. I’m reminding myself that money is a tool; I refuse to be afraid to spend it to enjoy myself and to experience things, but I will also cook a cheap meal if I’m feeling tighter on funds than I would like. I’ve lost and destroyed so many of the few possessions I have with me, and I’ve come to realize that everything is either unnecessary – I don’t even miss it – or replaceable.
This blog has also taught me about myself. It isn’t exactly what I thought it was – I’m honestly not even sure what it is, only that I have a compulsion to tell my stories in a completely honest and candid way that people can relate to. Hopefully sometimes in a way that makes them laugh. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time, but I’ve never had the motivation to keep up with it. This is the longest I’ve ever stuck with an independent project, and it’s teaching me that I can do it, and that my changing location and activities don’t make being an artist harder; in a way, it becomes easier.
But perhaps the most valuable thing that all of these changes have brought to me is that I’ve fallen in love with art in a different way. I will never stop being an artist; the highlights of my travels have been the theatre, the opera, the ballet. But my relationship with this world is slowly changing. I don’t need to sacrifice my happiness or my sanity – what kind of life is that? I can create the things I want to create, I don’t need this industry to tell me I’m good enough. I can live wherever I want and go wherever I want and make whatever I want. I don’t need permission and it’s not about anyone’s approval.
So that, I suppose, was a rundown of 2017. But I would like to have some goals for the coming year.
The first one I think is to keep up the best I can with this blog. I don’t anticipate an issue for the rest of this trip – it’s afterwards that I’m concerned about. I don’t even know what city, or even what country I’ll be living in, but I don’t want to settle too much. I never want to settle, even if I do location-wise for awhile. I want to always be pushing and challenging myself. I hope that this blog will always inspire me to take chances.
Another goal I have is to actually focus on writing the pieces I want to perform. Not to do it on the side, not to open up the Word document once every couple of weeks. I want to do this full time. Until I have a product I’m proud of, that I can do something with. A product that I can workshop and would be proud to act in, that I can get produced, that can hopefully eventually tour the world. I want to take control over my career and over my art.
Finally, my last goal of 2018 is that I will not go back to a day job that makes me unhappy. Ideally, I would like something creative: I’ve been seriously considering doing something like flower arranging or cake decorating. Something that isn’t purely customer service. Something that isn’t high stress. Maybe even something that isn’t about the money, but is just enough to get by. Life is too short to live an unhappy day-to-day existence, even if it is in pursuit of your goals.
Change isn’t always easy; 2017 was certainly a difficult, but absolutely rewarding year in my life. I found more moments of pure happiness than I’ve ever had, despite the moments of uncertainty and fear. But that fear has made me stronger. I’ve become comfortable in what once made me uncomfortable, and I hope in this next year I can continue to keep growing into the fearless warrior I hope someday to be.
Happy New Year, folks.