What if traveling the world isn’t enough?
When I was a sophomore in college, right after I got back from spending a semester abroad studying in England, I was bright and shiny and hopeful. Every day was filled with possibility and fun and excitement. Every day I looked forward to the effervescent TOMORROW where I would work hard and reach my goals triumphantly, creating new dreams in the process, all while changing lives and enjoying myself immensely.
Today is different.
Every day now I wonder what is it that would make me happy? Or do I even have the right to expect some form of happiness in life? What’s the purpose of life if not for happiness? And how do some people live lives filled with struggle and pain and yet they smile through it all anyway?
Once it was the idea of traveling the world, acting, exploring, meeting new people, playing different stages, screens that made me shiver with anticipation.
Now I’ve played a dream role, a few actually. And I’ve toured and traveled, acted, met new people, explored countrysides and cities…and it didn’t make me happy.
It was enjoyable. I laughed a lot. It was fun.
But it didn’t give me the feeling of ecstasy that I remember having, the feeling that I felt at through childhood and adolescence…the bright-eyed, ever hopeful excitement that followed me from one role to the next, one possibility to the next.
Tumblr, what do you do when your dreams come true, and they don’t make you feel the way you hoped you would, the way you used to?
Is this growth? Is this succumbing to the mediocrity of life that eventually everyone must face?
I don’t want to believe that it was sheer naivete that made me feel so hopeful, so happy in younger years. I don’t want to believe that this is the reality that I must fight every day, the struggle to find energy and passion that once was so plentiful I bragged about it.
Is this a good thing, this doubt? Is this a normal thing?
It doesn’t even have to be performing, although when I watch a movie or hear a symphony, every bit of me aches with a desire to feel the passion I once did. Passion has been replaced with exhaustion.
Is it only because I’m sick? Or does this mark the turning of the page to a new chapter?
I’m scared, I admit it. I’m terrified and tired. I can only hope and pray that my passion does come back and that once it does, I will be pointed in the right direction for me.
