Transition is Endless
The transition to life after graduation brought with it more pain than I thought it would. Now, to be honest, I consider myself very blessed. I live at home currently near NYC with my family, I am financing a car, I’m teaching elementary school kids theater games and other imagination tools, and overall my life is fruitful. When I look at my circumstance from a lens of gratitude, I see a life which I am grateful for. But navigating the journey of transition from Acting-School life brings emotional pain. I have lived the past 6 years of my life in this little bubble where all I did was grow my creative muscles, surround myself with amazing artists, and live a short walk away from nearly everyone in my world. Now, I do not live near all those people who I love and I am not surrounded by art. On top of that, Life fills up very quickly. Whether it be with auditions, gigs, day jobs, family events, or tasks that are necessary for maintaining my health, the week gets bloated faster than you can say “oh fuck, where did the time go?”. At the same time, there have been weeks where I get so scared of how big the world seems and how many choices there are to make, that I just freeze up and sink into myself. I get stuck, paralyzed with the fear of doing all of this wrong. I am coming out of that paralysis fog now, and I’ve learned two things about myself and the universe:
1. All of life is our rituals, there is nothing else but what we do and who we interact with. Maintaining the rituals that are necessary for the care of our bodies and minds is essential to being content, no matter how mundane the ritual may seem.
2. Transition is Forever. The only constant in the universe is change. Everything is changing, always and forever. Accepting this truth and surrendering to it is the only way to avoid losing my mind.
These two truths have guided me out of my paralysis fog, heavily assisted by the words and support of my family and friends. I feel hopeful for the coming future, but I know I’ll end up back in that fog eventually. Then I’ll learn something from it, come back out, and sometime after that, get sucked back in again - it’s a cycle that’ll repeat forever. It seems simple, but I keep tricking myself into thinking that there’s an emotional zenith or final form I can reach where I’ll be fully happy and finished with my growth as a person. This is silly, but it’s beautiful lie. The harder thing to do is accept that no matter how badly I want to be complete, the transitions of my life will never end, they are just something to accept, embrace, and eventually learn to love.
