I'm sitting in the library listening to Francesca Battistelli sing an uplifting song about how God uses our trials for His purposes and I'm feeling pretty good even though I'm still behind in all of my classes and possibly failed two tests yesterday and still have not put in my submission for that gospel tour and am bleeding funds like a chronic drug user who hasn't switched to the hard stuff yet and...ya know. Life. But there are good things.
I was able to pick up some hours at work, so I can slow down the hemhorrage a teensy bit. I got an A+ on a paper I was really nervous about. In addition to the thing online I sill have to apply for, I still have two auditions coming up. They'll be after senior showcase, so I can hopefully figure out between now and then what made me so repulsive to my last two sets of creative teams. I have managed to exercise a little bit this week and practice enough that I felt like I was doing something, so I have less reason to self flagellate, and the week ain't but half over yet. Yes, I can still agonize about my scene for senior project, pout about my boss talking down to me, and wring my hands over not being any closer to jumping onto the road behind a driver's seat, but why would I do that after listening to Norm Lewis for an hour and watching a very decent episode of Smash? Those feelings are for another time.
Instead, I shall reflect on something that is just occurring to me: I am only 21. I was aware, of course, for several months that I was 21 yearsa old, but it's only just come up that there is an "only" attatched to it. While I was watching Smash, the great Bernadette Peters mentioned, as the great Leigh Conroy, that she was "only" 27 when she won her first Tony. This was immediately refuted by her highly irritated offspring and they had a little bitch off about it, but while that was happening, my mind began to wander back to when the cast of Spring Awakening appeared on the Rosie O'Donnel show and Rosie appeared to be floored by the fact that so much of the cast was under 24. It's come to my attention that it's notable for anyone to achieve some kind of notoriety before age 30. This begs the question, what are they doing before then?
My pet ambition up until March was to be an entertainer at Dollywood. Between my rejection from Dollywood and my dismissal from Stone Mountain, it's not looking too good for me on the theme park front. Then there's the logical step to theme parks, cruise ships, one of which I'm auditioning for later this month, but which seems to be somehow less attainable than a cruise ship. Then you have your summer houses, your dinner theatres, and your little restaurants where you sing for your supper. In which of these will I spend the next several years, making the painful crawl from one show to the next, hoping that each one makes me a bit more legitimate? It's weird to think of myself in one of those in-between places that hopefully brings me closer, but may not. It's strange to imagine being one of those people teachers are talking about when they say that there are lots of paid actors who don't work on Broadway...or Off-Broadway...or in regional houses...On the other hand, it's kind of fascinating to think of myself as someone who flits from gig to gig, singing a wedding here, doing a voiceover there, all of which happens in between shifts at California Pizza Kitchen with my fellow soldiers. That could be fun. That could be my own version of Smash.
There's no way I'll ever be the youngest person on Broadway, and there's nothing keeping me from being the oldest. It may be the happy vibes from the internet talking but, at the moment, I'm thinking it might be alright if I did some floating. WIf nothing else, it'll make for a good back story in my bio when I finally have someone to read it.
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