Yesterday, I talked about being conflicted about the general act of decorating my room.
Today, I’m talking about the stuff I’m decorating it with.
I’m sure this is not shocking to you in the least, but a whole lot of my stuff is running-themed. I have medals and plaques and photos and stuff. And that’s great and all. I obviously love running. Adore it. It’s basically what keeps me sane.
But I’m starting to wonder, instead of my hobby adding to my life, is it taking over my life? I had a grand ol’ time doing my 52 half marathons. Really, it was so fun. And I like that I have a definitive, completed thing that I can say I accomplished. All of that is awesome.
But where are my creative achievements?
It’s not like I’ve completely stopped trying. I’ve obviously taken classes in writing, improv, and all that jazz. I’ve written specs and musicals and stand-alone songs and on and on. Heck, I write in this blog everyday. I assume that counts for something, thought what do I really know?
But what do I actually have to show for any of it?
Sure, I’ve listed some of the things I’ve done/am doing, but they’re obviously not enough.
When I imagined the type of person I wanted to be, I thought that I wanted to be pretty well rounded. At any moment if someone asked me what I was up to, I wanted to be able to list something “smart” (or at least expanding my knowledge on the world e.g. learning a foreign language or taking a science class), something strong/athletic (e.g. training for a marathon, an ironman, what have you), something “good” (or at least hopefully adding to the world (e.g. volunteering somewhere I deemed worthwhile, etc.), and most importantly, I wanted to be able to list something creative.
The creative part was supposed to be my job – the thing I did with the majority of my time. I always felt that I wanted to be well-rounded but that if anything ever had to give/go, it would be any of the other categories. Sure, I want to be smart, civically minded, and a super cool adventurer. But way more than all of things combined, I want to be someone who makes new things in this world – or who at least adds her spin on things with a team of others (since teamwork makes the dream work and all that).
(And maybe that sounds selfish that I care about my career and dreams more than anything else in the world. I’ll admit, I am a little selfish… but apparently not selfish enough if you look where my life is right now!)
So, I don’t totally know what this means for me. I don’t know if it means trying to work that much harder to break into the scripted side of TV (as opposed to working in reality which is what I do now), or if it means trying to do more improv, or find open mics, or put on my own stuff in little 99 seat theaters out here, or audition for tiny Equity-waiver plays.
Even when I just said the word Equity, my goodness. Do you remember when I came out of high school, hypothetical guns a’blazing just ready to tear up the world, accepting nothing less than getting my Equity Card within a year of graduating?
That’s Aurora!
I used to embarrass myself all the time when I performed (and especially when I performed my own stuff). Sometimes my stuff wasn’t ready. Sometimes I just had a not great performance. But I have certainly come to see (literally, it has been shown to me visually by a plethora of medals and an extreme lack of show posters and such) that I would rather be embarrassed daily than not create and perform and go nuts.
I mean, that’s it. That’s what my life is all about. And I’m not allowed to get complacent just because the plan isn’t totally going the way I expected, or because I keep getting rejected from stuff, or because I’m not living where I want/thought I would.
I have to push like high school Aurora pushed, ’cause she was fabulous and I freaking love her.
I’m unsure as of now what my next step is. But I know for a fact, I’ve gotta take one.