Picking up from last time –
There were other things too. “Should I sign up for this improv class? Should I sign up for this race?” Etc. Obviously I’d rather to the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop than practically anything else I could be doing. And I’m not a big humongous planner anyway. Still I had a desire to know where I’d be living the next couple of years (if possible – when is that ever really possible when anything could change at any moment)… I just felt very in the air… Which I have a very love/hate relationship with.
Of course it was a teensy bit scary to think, “I might be giving up this cushy job where I’ve made the most money I’ve ever made at a job (and hopefully enough to save up, or do cool things, or take new classes, or most importantly – move more comfortably-ish to New York)!
I might be giving up this super swanky, amazing, spectacular, apartment I have. I might be giving up the connections I’m starting to make (and really trying to make)… getting closer and closer to the scripted world of television (maybe, one can only hope). And I might be slumming it without a job or apartment or plan, sleeping on couches and busses just trying to figure it all out.”
But there was like .0000003% fear in that. It was a million, trillion times more terrifying to think I might not be doing that.
My brain also started to eat itself thinking about ridiculous career stuff. First, now that I’m flying all close to the sun and practically tasting taking this huge step, I’m starting too poo-poo everything I’ve been doing. “Oh 52 performances in 52 weeks in small theaters and coffee shops? Who cares, Aurora?”
Thinking about moving to NYC and looking at all the people who’ve done the workshop, it’s like I got myself out of my tiny box of small steps and saw the big picture again.
And the big picture is so huge. There is so much to do in this world. And it was sort of overwhelming and sort of wonderful to think about all that.
But then I also thought, “Oh my goodness gracious. Even if I actually get into the workshop, all I have done is get into school! School. It will have taken 6 years just to jump the hurdle of getting into a program?
Eesh. If it takes that long to start a program, how long is it possibly going to take to get an agent or get something mounted/produced (on a bigger level than I could do myself)? At this rate, I’ll be dead before anything goes to Broadway!
But then I thought, “It doesn’t matter how long it’s taken. Life is just life. And parts of it might go slow or fast. You just have to keep moving forward.”
[Side note: Once I was in New York for the audition – which we will get to, I ended up texting myself a pdf of one of my songs so I could study it while I walked around. And I realized the text to myself before that (from a while ago) was a gif I’d found and loved (and wanted to save) from Meet The Robinsons that said “keep moving forward” (my favorite quote from a movie I adore).]
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.