Confessions of a Quarter-Life Crisis

Some people seem to have their lives all planned out by the age of, oh, I don't know, eight.


I was one of them.

I'm hardly a planner--I'm more of a close-my-eyes-and-fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-and-hope-everything-magically-works-out kind of girl. Still, I've always been passionate, and my passions dictate my direction. That was true even when I was a kid. I loved nothing more than dreaming about what I would be when I grew up. For a while, I was thinking astronaut; my seven-year-old wisdom and maturity quickly assured me that, nay, I was far better suited to be a pirate princess. (A regular princess never interested me. Pirates got the shiny swords.) I even briefly considered being a nun (to repent for my interest in piracy?). However, by the time I was eight or nine, I knew full well my true calling: a writer/actor/singer/dancer extraordinaire.

And, darn it, it was going to be great.

I never doubted my dreams. I had been reading voraciously since early kindergarten and had an innate talent for wordplay, world building, and correcting dangling prepositions. My first major novel idea dawned on me at age nine. Writing, then, was a must. But so too was acting and singing and dancing--I took piano, dance, and voice lessons, performed in community theatre, was a natural ham with a variety of silly facial expressions at my disposal. Theatre was a must, too. Despite having two huge passions, I considered myself blessed--how many people, I figured, were lucky enough to have not only one, but two things that they loved above all else?

Now I'm a sophomore in college, and I'm still following my dreams. I study musical theatre. I don't have the time (i.e., the sanity) to pick up a minor, but my obsessions with reading and writing remain. When people ask what I want to be when I graduate, I respond, "Employed." They think I'm kidding. At the ripe old age of 19, I'm having a quarter-life crisis. Dreams, I've realized, are hugely! important, and motivate me when everything else seems to be going wrong--but they can also be expensive, and daunting, and scary and paralyzing and maybe even impossible. What if I fail now? What if I fail later? What if I've already failed and don't even know it? What if I should have been an English major instead and done theatre on the side? What if I'm at the wrong school? What if I never make money and have to sell my hair and my dignity and my teeth like Fantine? More often than not, I let my fears trap me--instead of letting them keep me buoyant. I miss when dreams were wings, not cages.

I'm ready to fly.

Dream on! (:
Dani