Future, What Future?

What do you do when you begin to wonder if you're truly cut out for the career path you've started down? What do you do when you begin to question everything that you've been striving for? It seemed so clear initially, everything made sense. But as time passes, it becomes less and less clear. I went for the more practical career, the one that was respectable and made sense. I've always loved animals, always been good with them. But the science of it all makes my head spin, makes it hard to enjoy what I'm doing. So I start to wonder, is it for me. And then I come back to, god, what a failure I would be again if I gave it up with just two semesters to go. But then, what does it say when I dread going back and trying to wrap my mind around all these complex procedures. I love animals, but is that enough? And more and more, I'm thinking not. I find the science interesting, fascinating even, but the understanding of it often eludes me.

A Whole New World

So lately I've had the song A Whole New World from Aladdin stuck in my head which is kind of funny because I haven't seen it anytime recently and its not one of the Disney movies I've seen a lot.  Don't get me a wrong, I love Aladdin, but I've always been more of a Little Mermaid/Beauty and the Beast kind of girl.  But I digress.  I couldn't figure out why that song was stuck in my head and then suddenly it just sort of clicked.  I've been thinking about my life a lot since the beginning of the year with trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.  Right now I feel very stuck, very caged in.  I'm stuck in a dead-end job that I hate with a passion, stuck with no real future it feels like, stuck in a place where there aren't very many opportunities in any of the various activities or hobbies that I enjoy.  Again, don't get me wrong, I love New Mexico, I was born and raised here, but its not exactly a bustling state where you have all kinds of different opportunities or jobs in the areas that I enjoy.

Sometimes Being Practical Is No Fun

Do you ever have those moments when you have a choice between two things you want where one is fun but practical and the other is just fun?  Yeah, me too.  I hate decisions like that, but its a part of growing up, something else I'm not a huge fan of.  Can I please just go back to being a little girl playing in the mud not worried about how I looked or what I was going to do with my life?  Nope, stuck being an adult.  Ah, well.  In any case, I recently struggled with one of those choices.  Since its unlikely that I'm going to be able to take any classes at CNM this semester, my parents mentioned that I should check and see if UNM Continuing Education had any cooking classes I could take in the meantime.  So I went and checked and sure enough they had quite a few one night cooking classes.  There were also a lot of other classes with arts and crafts, music, writing, exercise, etc.  As I set about exploring the various classes I could take, the music ones caught my eye.  One of them was for the University Chorus, a choir that you didn't have to audition for that was going to be working towards a performance of a The Defiant Requiem, part of Verdi's Requiem, a beautiful piece of music.  I immediately decided I wanted to take this class not just because of the piece being sung, but because it culminated in a performance in Popejoy Hall.

A Simple Life

 

A lot of the time when people hear that I want to make a living as an actress, they automatically figure I want that life for the fame and fortune.  They think I want all the fancy dresses, the parties, the awards, the big houses, etc.  The funny thing is, that's not why I want it all.  Dresses?  Give me a pair of jean and a t-shirt any day.  I'm not a big fan of dressing up.  Parties?  If you've seen me at a party, I'm generally the person standing awkwardly in the corner feeling very uncomfortable and out of place.  Awards?  Sure they're great, but they're not needed.  Houses?  Why on earth would I need or want more than one?  And most people who know me pretty well, know that I don't like really big houses, I like something much simpler.

The only reason I want to work as an actress is because its what I love and for the most part, I don't think I'm terrible at it.  Sure I still have a lot to learn, but I think I'm at least decent.  And if I am terrible at it, well, I can only get better.  But sometimes I wonder if I could handle it all, all the stress and craziness of that kind of life.  Yes, I would be doing something I loved but would all the sacrifices I would have to make for it be worth it?  And the other aspect that I think about from time to time is that I would like to get married eventually.  According to some, at 22 I'm already starting to get old which I personally think is ridiculous.  But I sometimes wonder, in that industry is it possible to find someone to marry who isn't going to cheat on me with his co-star or decide he wants a divorce?  Hollywood marriages notoriously end in divorce with very few lasting for any real length of time.