The Importance of Being (h)Earnest

So Here I Am.

I’m in my last semester of undergrad. I’m 3 months away from having a BFA in Acting. I’ll be an ‘adult.’ It’s surreal, thinking about how close I am to achieving something I have spent 5 years studying in two different states. I couldn’t be happier.

I love my boyfriend partner soooooo much (i know how gay that sounded, and i stand by it). I just hate my theater schedule, not just because it’s demanding, but it causes me to rely solely on the bus system of detroit/metro detroit. it sucks. a lot. I’m trying to get a car and I’ve been talking with my mom.  I’m trying so hard every day and it’s made even harder that I don’t get to see my man as much as I should. I think about him all the time.  The whole long 14 hour day i have at school, I think about him. I miss him incessantly. I cannot wait to graduate, not only to pursue my career, get a real job, and be able to spend as much fucking time with my partner as I want. I want to live my life on a schedule i create entirely, no more college, no more time constraints.  Any responsibility i have, I will have control over.  I just love him so much and want to make him happy and hold him and snuggle him as much as possible.

This semester is shaping up to be great.  Lots of hard work ahead, long nights, lots of sweat and tears, but I’m ready, I know i can get through it.  I know i can figure myself out.  I just needed more self control and drive.  I grew up recently, and I don’t know exactly when, but I did.  

And you know what world, prepare to be taken down motherfucker.

so

tonight is our second to last night here in moscow. I never thought I would ever say this, but I am so excited to go back to America.

The classes here were life-changing. I have a whole new perspective on theatre and acting. I have a new attitude about myself. I’ve grown as an actor, as a person. I’ve learned so much about life as a whole.

I’ve also learned a lot about human interaction.  Some people on this trip with me have hurt my feelings immensely. I’ve lost friends, I’ve gained new ones, and deepened friendships with people I was already friends with, and started to develop new friendships and then been let down and hurt.  The aforementioned people who have hurt me and let me down are all very age-conscious.  Biological age has nothing to do with maturity or life experience or any of that bullshit.  What matters is what you’ve done with the time you’ve been alive.  Judging someone for being ‘young’ or doing things that you did “when you were ‘much younger’” is unbelievably immature and hurtful.  

I’m a stronger person now.  I’ve learned a lot about what to watch out for in people and I’m quickly becoming less and less naive about people, less optimistic about people.  I don’t mean that I have lost faith in everyone, but I was optimistic about people to an almost unhealthy extent, which led to me being hurt more than I should have.

I am so glad I took this trip to Moscow. It’s been worth every experience, good and bad, because for the past month I’ve been doing what I love doing more than anything else: learning.  One of the two acting teachers I had this month had personal conferences with everyone and he brought up this “sponge-for-knowledge” aspect of my personality and commended me for it, told me to continue in this direction.  He said that it was good that I always want to be better and work harder and to continue working always; SUPER gratifying to hear that.  That meeting, coupled with a new sense of bravery in life are the two most important things I’ve gleaned from this trip.  In every single class, singing, acting, movement, dance, theater history, history of russian cinema, every teacher brought the point that to be successful in theatre, you must not be afraid, you must be brave.  

So, lookout Detroit, this brave motherfucker is about to come back from Russia and tear some shit up, shake up some art, and do all of it with comfortable confidence and a whole new outlook on life.