Doubt

Since I was ten, I have never doubted what I wanted to do with my life. I want to do theater. I want to perform on the stage. I want to move to New York and be on Broadway.

But for the first time in ten years, I'm having doubts. I once read a quote by Michael Shurtleff that said something along the lines of, theater is only for the certifiably insane. If you can be happy doing something else, by all means, do it, because it's a hard life. I've known that. I've accepted it. I've always said that I would be miserable unless I did theater.

But after the hardest school year of my life, I got really burned out on theater. I can't listen to any showtunes without getting irritated. I have very little drive to do any theater. I've spent a lot of the summer volunteering at a hospital in town and I've been very happy doing it. I know I couldn't be in the medical field like both of my parents are because I'm not a science person. I would be miserable in those classes. But the work I'm doing is more of paperwork and dealing with people. I feel like I'm helping people, and that makes me really happy. I feel like I'm doing something for someone else, which is a feeling I don't always get from performing.

It makes me wonder. There probably ARE a lot of things I could be happy doing. I love studying psychology. I love reading and enjoy writing. I love helping people. I love cooking. But I have a full scholarship for four years. I'm almost done with classes for my theater degree. If I changed my major now, there is no way I could finish in two more years. And I can't afford to stay longer.

So I can only satisfy myself now by being relieved that I chose a BA degree instead of a conservatory program and hope that the theater program I start on Sunday reminds me why I used to love theater so much.

Here's hoping.