30 'til 30 Day 5: Be The Change

I just wrote a college recommendation for a student's JMU application!!

It's crazy to think that it has now been TWELVE years since I first became a Duke. I feel like such a different person now than I was then, even by the time I graduated. Like so much of myself was discovered after those four years. But college was also absolutely pivotal in setting the foundation for my adult life. And nowhere was that more clear than on graduation day.

This has been a posting on a previous blog already, so I apologize in advance for the redundancy to anyone who has read this before, but as some of you know, one of my proudest accomplishments to this day was being chosen as the Senior Speaker at graduation, so it's fitting that it should make an apperance here, too.

So today, I'm sharing my speech again. It came from the heart then and it rings even truer now. Being the Change, as the JMU campaign would have it, doesn't have to be about huge, heralded acomplishments. Quiet, selfless action, carried out in love-- that's where the real change begins.

Ambition.

“Ardent desire for rank, fame, or power, desire to achieve a particular end, desire for activity or exertion.”

As I look out on the sea of purple that makes up my graduating class, JMU’s Centennial Class, It’s all I see.

I see it in fellow theatre majors who’ve spent hours in an old turkey hatchery* directing and designing, building and rehearsing their shows. In tour guides who will walk backwards through driving rain just so that one prospective student can have the best possible visit to JMU.

I see it a nursing major who spent more of her senior year driving to and from a hospital in Charlottesville than she did in her own apartment. In roommates who stayed in on weekends to write lesson plans, case studies, and theses. In friends who’ve poured their last year of college into fundraising and planning, working together to build a school in Uganda.

You are ambitious people. Not only dreamers, but movers and shakers too. If I can be really cliché for a moment, I’ll even say that you “are the change.”

However, as I’ve pondered what the future might hold for us ambitious folks, I’ve found a surprising new definition.

Since, next to a cheesy dictionary definition, every graduation speech needs an inspirational quote, bear with me as I read you a bit of wisdom I recently stumbled upon. A mantra, if you will.

“Make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, so that your daily life will win the respect of outsiders”

You who know me are already laughing. The last word anyone would use to describe me is “quiet.” If you don’t know me… You’ve probably heard me. Whether screaming the fight song at football games or standing by Chip’s, harassing cars to “honk for Choices” … I can get a bit loud. I was barely allowed to walk at my last graduation after a suspension for “inciting a riot” And yes, I was that girl dressed like Britney Spears on the commons a few months ago asking random strangers, “Y’all seen Sean Preston??”

A “quiet life” has never really been my goal.

Yet this quote says it should be my Ambition.

“Desire for rank, fame, power.” The original Greek used here is Philotimeomai. Love of Honor.

This we pursue with quietness? Is anyone else confused?

I recently finished a book called Velvet Elvis, weird title, I know, but an inspiring work nonetheless. Anyway, after recalling the story of a woman who moved into the inner city & bit by bit fed and clothed her new neighbors, the author, Rob Bell, makes a great point:

“It is the quiet, humble, stealth acts that change things,” he says, “The kinds of people who change the world… they improvise & adapt & innovate… they don’t make a lot of noise and they don’t draw attention to themselves”

Class of 2008. I challenge you. Be these kind of people. Let’s stop talking about change and live it with “quiet lives” of great significance.

Some of you are going on to graduate programs, some have jobs lined up, others plan to travel, see the world. If you’re a theatre major like me, you have no idea what’s next. I leave you all with a word of caution: as you set off with your huge dreams and plans, your high hopes for worldwide change, don’t forget about the smaller world around you.

You may never get out of suburban America.

That’s O.K.

Wherever you end up: whether it’s New York or London; Uganda, Africa, or Harrisonburg, Virginia. Change your world.

Love your neighbors. Your co-workers. Your family. Work hard at whatever you do and look for opportunities to quietly fight injustice whenever you see it. Live a quiet life. A life of humility, service, and love, and you will see change.

Thank you. And go get ‘em, Dukes!

30 'til 30 day 4: A (brief) Life in the Theatre

Today, I taught my production classes about jobs in the professional theatre world.Though I know I just posted a few days ago about how blessed I feel to have the teaching job I have now, I still see one of the greatest accomplishments of my 20's as the fact that I managed to actually work in professional theatre for the first five years of my career. For one, it absolutely made me a stronger theatre teacher. I was able to observe some incredibly brilliant artists and picked up so many tools and tricks to pull out now that I'm teaching and producing a whole season of high school shows. I also am able to speak from experience when advising my students who are seriously considering a career in the professional world, and have even been able to connect some with professional learning opportunities within the Richmond theatre community. But on a personal level, those years gave me some incredible experiences, life lessons, and lasting friendships that I would never have known if I had jumped into teaching right away.

Looking back, I realize it was kind of an insane choice to try and pursue a career in theatre at the time I did. I graduated from college in 2008, which some may recall as the year that the economy decided to go completely tits up. I can still feel the stress of that last semester at JMU: as my more confident actor friends landed touring gigs (I regretfully made the decision too soon to not even try to do the professional actor thing) and friends with more sensible majors were finding jobs in business, healthcare, etc., I was frantically applying to every theatre internship that was still taking applications.  As March and April rolled around, more friends started to solidify plans, and I started to panic, still having no answer to the constant question of "what's next" from well-meaning professors, friends, and acquaintances. Somewhat miraculously, the eleventh hour brought two opportunities: a summer internship at a Theatre in Vermont and a nine month "Apprenticeship" (fancier word for an internship), in DC. Both had housing and a small (VERY small) stipend, and both actually wanted to hire me.

So I went for it. I will probably need individual posts for each of the four internships I would ultimately hold in the next two years,* but the overarching impact of those internships, the subsequent assortment of contract jobs, and the final salaried position I would ultimately end up with before making the switch to teaching full time, is that they shaped the work ethic and skill set I have today.

I learned that working for a Theatre is not just fun and games. Some days I ended up doing a lot of mindless manual labor. I stuffed envelopes, I entered patron information into databases, I sold subscriptions over the phone. Other days, though, I got to visit inner city schools and talk about theatre. I got to watch whole audiences of high school students see a professional production for the first time. I took pre-schoolers on silly, crazy imaginary journeys like a real-life Miss Frizzle. I got to help classroom teachers learn how to use theater to better teach Math, Science, English, and Social Studies. I got to go to conferences and seminars with the leaders in arts education at the Kennedy Center. I got to direct things (that's definitely another day's post, too)

It seems that the trend of this blog is me realizing that my experiences have shaped me, and I wouldn't trade them for anything, and blah, blah, blah. I worry that I'm starting to get redundant. But it's all true. There were many moments in the past decade where I felt like my career was a joke, like I didn't know what the heck I was doing in theater. There were seasons where I had no clue what was coming next, and days I cried because I just didn't have it in me to juggle any more jobs or send out another resume. But things always worked out, and each new job brought me closer and closer to where I am now. My only regret is the time I wasted worrying and waiting for the next thing, getting too frustrated with where I was to not embrace the opportunities and enjoy the experiences at hand. Still, I grew and learned in spite of myself and can now dive into the next season with a new attitude.


*Again, looking back, this seems like insanity-- but at the time these were the only opportunities I could find, and in the words of Alexander Hamilton via Lin Manuel Miranda, I was "young, scrappy and hungry and not throwin' away MY SHOT." Mic drop.

30 'til 30 Day 3: F*R*I*E*N*D*S

Confession: I binged watched three seasons of Friends over break. Between syndication and the first run of the show back when I was in high school, I'm sure I've seen almost every episode already, but the allure of the whole series being right there at my fingertips on Netflix was just too hard to pass up.

Like many in my generation, I think Friends set a bit of an unrealistic expectation for my post-grad social life. Of course, I knew people who moved to the same cities as most of their friends from college and who, from what I can tell on Facebook, have been hanging out with the same people ever since. But my nomadic lifestyle, especially in those first few years after college, kept me from forming that kind of a tight bond with any one group.

Even in high school and college, I never stuck to just one clique. I was friends with lots of individual people from all walks of life. I had my theatre buddies, my youth group friends, then in college, my Intervarsity friends, more theatre pals, my tour-guide friends, etc.

For a long time, I saw my scattered friendships as a failing, longing for a close-knit group of my own and envying those who had this type of community. I once dated someone for a few months longer than I should have, simply because his friends and their wives and girlfriends, who had all known each other for years, were this cool clique that I wanted to belong with so badly. I was devastated when we broke up, less because the relationship was over, and more because I no longer was welcome in the group.

As time has gone on, I've grown to be grateful for the friendships I do have. On one of the (too many) episodes of Friends I watched recently, some character said something about leaving town to get away from the group, to which Phoebe replied, "But where are you going to go? All of your friends are right here."

Having one group to hang out with is great in many respects. I have been lucky enough over the past year and a half to grow really close really quickly with a "crew" of teacher friends, with whom I love to spend most of my spare evenings, weekends, and break days. But I also would never trade the individual relationships I have cultivated over the years. From a roommate-turned-travel-buddy and other dear friends in Seattle, to a road-trip-partner-in-crime in Portland, high school best friends in Los Angeles, college soul sisters in North Carolina and Dallas, an almost sister-in-law in Atlanta, the coolest of cousins in Austin, Richmond Theatre loves, church friends, and brunch buddies, and, of course, the most wonderful new roommate who has stuck with me through the best and worst times of the past 10 years, I could not be more grateful to have loved ones scattered all over the country. Who needs Central Perk when the whole world is your coffee shop??

 

It's taken a lot of time and reflection to get here, but I've never felt more content relationally than I do at this exact moment in time. And if the next ten years bring as many more beautiful people into my life as the last decade has, I will be a blessed woman, indeed!

30 'til 30 Day 2: The Dream Job

After two GLORIOUS weeks of winter break, I go back to work tomorrow morning. Like any good teacher, I had a whole list of things I wanted to work on over break. Take a wild guess as to what percentage of those things I actually finished...

So to inspire myself to at least try to tackle at least few more of the things on my list before popping my Tylenol PM tonight (the only way I can fall asleep on the last night of any break),  I figured I'd make today's post about one of the proudest accomplishments of my 20's: landing my dream job.

Apparently, I always knew I'd end up a drama teacher. Since starting my job, I've run into two people from high school who reminded me that even back then, I'd predicted that this was be the gig for me. Given that I knew what I wanted to do so early, you'd think I would have ended up landing here a little earlier than 28, but I took the scenic route.

JMU now has a distinct track in their theatre program for students seeking teacher certification but when I started there in 2004, there was no such concentration. To get an education degree, I would have to major in a "core" subject (I picked English), stay for a 5th year to complete a Masters in Education, and add on a theatre endorsement along the way. I figured out pretty soon that with all of the required education courses I needed to take, I would only be able to minor in Theatre, giving me only 15 credits (5 classes) of study in the subject area I really wanted to teach. So I made the bold move to drop the education requirement and double major in English and Theatre, figuring I could always find an alternate path to certification later.

When senior year rolled around, I looked into programs like Teach for America, which offered certification in exchange for teaching in an inner city school, but was lured by the glamorous life of a $150 / week plus housing theater internship instead. And then the West called. And so on...

My life as an intern and my westward adventure will most certainly be posts for another day, but as they relate to my current career as a teacher, I am SO thankful that I took the time to make each and every stop I made along the way.

And boy were there a lot of stops. I remember working on a job application once after moving back to Richmond and crying because it asked me to list every employment I had held in the past five years and it took me over an hour just to list them all. But looking back now, I see how each and every work experience I had in my early and mid 20's built me for the work I do now. Even the four months I worked at JCrew after moving back to Richmond helped build my future teacher wardrobe. More significantly, I learned so much about my work style and personality through the plethora of jobs I held before this one. I discovered that sitting behind a desk as an arts administrator is not for me. Even though the job can be great some days, it can also be much more tedious than it appears: it's the independent contractors, not the salaried employees, that get to do the fun stuff at most theaters. But freelancing from one independent contract to the next was way too much stress for me, and in my case required me to constantly be working a second (or third, or fourth), job as a waiter, nanny, etc. Though the constant change in creative projects was fun and exciting, the hustle was downright exhausting, and it turns out I'm not freewheeling enough to not always know where my next paycheck is coming from. And don't even get me started on tax season with 1099s!

That's not to say that now that I'm a teacher I never deal with financial stress or exhaustion. I am convinced that drama teachers work more unpaid hours than any other position in a school. During the weeks leading up to the musical this year I worked between 12 and 16 hours a day. But if there is anything my past work history has taught me, it's that I would rather work 70 hours a week doing a job I am passionate about than put in 40 hours at a job that I hate.

I talked yesterday about how lonely the start of middle school was for me. Seventh grade was a little bit better, but it wasn't until I was selected for yearlong drama in eighth grade that I actually felt accepted by my peers. Finally, here was a place where people weren't overwhelmed by my deeply felt emotions or irritated by my loud personality. In drama class, my personality could never be too big for the stage, and my emotions were an asset that helped me connect to characters. The other loud, emotional kids became my friends and cast-mates and together, we told beautiful stories.

That is the environment that I hope I am cultivating in my classroom. When I get overwhelmed with rehearsal schedules and booster meetings and making sure I'm giving the expected number of formative and summative grades per nine weeks, I think back to my middle and high school drama years and remember what really matters. I certainly don't remember what kind of assessments my teacher gave.What I do remember is that I was encouraged to be myself,  to value the stories and lives of others, to think critically, to work with others, to make brave choices and good theatre, etc.

There are lots of things broken in public schools and I have had my fair share of frustrating moments even in just a year and a half. So much is asked and expected of teachers, but at the end of the day what really matters is that I am teaching my students how to be good humans. I've always believed that theatre is capable of that, and I have seen the seeds of it in my classroom. When we focus on trust, and listening, and building an ensemble, we're not just developing skills for the stage. We're developing skills for life.

A final anecdote: During teacher work week last year, I was sitting in a professional development session, feeling quite overwhelmed and rather incapable of processing the information overload that a new teacher feels that first week. My high school drama teacher, a bit of a legend who just started her 45th year in the county (!!), must have noticed the deer in headlights look on my face, because she leaned over and slipped me a note that read simply, "Don't be overwhelmed or discouraged. You've got this. Most of this is bullshit."

So on nights like tonight, when waking up at 5:30 AM & facing a classroom full of loud, emotional teenagers (see what I did there), for three back-to-back 90 minute classes feels like the last thing I want to do and there are still exams to grade, and competition one-acts to consider, and Shakespeare units to plan, and oh-my-gosh-how-is-it-almost-11-already... *deep breaths*....On nights like tonight, I look at that note, taped to my mirror at home (because I'm afraid to post dirty words in my classroom until I have a little more tenure) and I remember not to beat myself up. This really is my dream job. I've got this.

Now on to those Shakespeare lesson plans.

30 'til 30 Day 1: Big Moves and the Voice of God.

Today, I am moving from an apartment in one neighborhood of Richmond to a row house on the other side of town. In the past 10 years alone, I have moved seven or eight times, depending on how you count it (I moved in and out of my parents’ house more than once after college). I have moments where I envy those who have managed to spend more than three years of their twenties (my personal best) in one spot. Now more than ever, I feel the urge to nest, to settle in and have furniture that matches and framed pictures on the walls. It’s killing me to pack everything up once again, knowing that it will be months before all of my things have a place again. But I’m also feeling the excitement of discovering a new place, even just a few miles away. I’m excited for new neighborhood walks and bakeries (the best gluten free muffins are just a block away from my door!) and new roommates to relax and watch SNL sketches with. While I hope this move is the last one I make for a while, I am looking forward to the new experiences and people ahead of me.

In one of these posts, I’m sure I’ll talk about that time I moved 4,000 miles to a city where I knew no one, probably the most formative experience of my 20's. But today, in honor of my not-so-big move across town, I am gonna throw it back 20 years to my first major move, which brought me from Florida to Virginia in 1996.

Picture me at 10 years old, tall and skinny and rocking a poofier version of Mary Lou Retton’s haircut circa the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (a detail that is irrelevant to the story, but too hilarious not to share). After changing elementary schools twice for various reasons (Florida public schools were not exactly centers of scholastic excellence at that time), I was finally in a class and a school where I was making friends and blossoming into the creative, bright, and not too socially awkward girl my parents always knew I could be.

And then ish hit the fan. I remember walking into my parents room one night to find them perusing real-estate catalogues for houses in Richmond, Virginia (remember those things people used to look at houses before Zillow). The cat was out of the bag. My dad had an opportunity to be an FCA state director in Virginia and my parents were selling our house and moving us north.

As far as states go, Virginia and Florida could not be more different. I remember gawking at  the “old timey” (Colonial) style of architecture (“Whoa, look at that old timey McDonalds!”) and lack of huge neon signs and billboards as we drove to our new house. No one in our neighborhood had their own pool like they did back in Florida and we definitely couldn’t wear shorts year-round anymore. “When I used to live in Florida...,” became my constant refrain as I shared with my new classmates all of the things that were new and different to me.

Remember, I had only just started to figure out the whole making new friends thing. Unfortunately, telling everyone how different your experiences are from theirs is not really the way to win friends and influence fifth graders, especially in a class where you are one of only a few students who has not attended the same school since kindergarten. Also, the Mary Lou Retton haircut was growing out by then (turns out that detail was relevant to the story!), so you can picture how that year went down.

And then I started middle school. You know that time when kids are SO kind and understanding and never make fun of the weird new kid whose hair still hasn’t figured out what it’s doing.

I’d come home crying most afternoons and my mom would give me a big hug and tell me to that it was ok, and that my family and Jesus loved me very much.

One day, I snapped back at her.

“Yeah, well Jesus can’t talk to me or be my friend.”

“Of course he can. Jesus is the best friend of all. He’s there when no one else is.” was her calm, gentle reply, “You just keep praying and reading your Bible and you’ll hear his voice. It’s a quiet voice, but you’ll know when it’s talking.”

“Yeah, right, mom. That might be how God talks to you, but he doesn’t talk to me, OK!”

Then I probably stormed off crying or something. Puberty was right around the corner.

But wouldn’t you know it, that night I sat down to read my Bible and the first scripture that I came to was Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.”

For the serious theologian, Jeremiah 29:11 is like a frosted flake of scripture, sugary sweet inspirational fodder taken out of context and imprinted on every candle holder, graduation card, and pewter bookmark that you ever got from your great aunt Betsy. I’ve heard whole sermons preached on its overuse and misinterpretation. But to my lonely 11 year old soul, it was the breath of God himself.

Skeptics call it coincidence. Mystics might call it intuition or the call of the universe. Non-believers call it baloney. For Christians that moment when a verse, or a song, or a word from a wise friend pierces your soul at the exact second you need it most--that is the voice of God. And that day I heard it for the first time.

Moving to Virginia was not my plan and it did not feel prosperous or hopeful, but God’s word promised me a hope and a future, and I, with the faith of a child, pressed in to that promise. A week or so later, I would hear the Point of Grace song “Jesus Will Still Be There,”* on the radio and know again with absolute certainty that those words were for me, that God was speaking, reminding me that he was on my side.

Eventually, I made some friends other than Jesus and my Mom. But there would be many times in the years to come (especially through the many moves and transitions of my 20’s), when that too-familiar lonely feeling would strike. I think because of my childhood, I’m especially susceptible to feeling excluded and friendless. But no matter how lonely I got, I always had somewhere to turn, believing and trusting that God was still there for me. Because of this, I have been able to make bolder choices. To wander the path less traveled. To move across the country (and back), knowing that I would not be left alone in unfamiliar territory.

I would be lying if I said that I’m not a little nervous about the move today. Even though it’s only 10 minutes uptown, it’s still a transition, with all of the stressors therein. But for the first time in a while, this move is a move towards friendship and community. Jesus will be there, as always, but so will two awesome single women with whom I am so ready to start my 30’s!

*Do yourself a favor and check out the 90’s Christian girl band awesomeness in this video. All those shadows and windows in that under-furnished room. What could it mean???

30 'til 30: The final countdown

Time has a way of flying by, doesn't it? I can't believe it has been over two years since I have taken the time to write anything public about my life. I've journaled privately here and there, but I have  mostly been busy tackling that whole adulthood thing I was pondering back in November 2013. The biggest moments: I quit my first grown-up job and started a wonderful new adventure as a high school teacher. I found mentors and made great new friends in the education world. I caught up with old friends on the west coast, New York, and Carolina. I interviewed for grad school in Texas, almost moved to Arkansas (!) and had a South American adventure in Ecuador. I faced my fear of commitment and worked on learning how to compromise and give in a long-term relationship. I also learned that no amount of compromise can fix a bad relationship, and two good people can still be wrong for each other. So I accepted a breakup and realized that singleness really isn't so bad after all.

 Like all of the life I've known so far, 2014 and 2015 brought both tears of pain and tears of joy, equal shares of anxiety and glee, excitement and disappointment, stress and rest.

And now, here we are on the first day (er--night)  of 2016, and the official countdown to turning 30 has begun! For the past year, I've thought a lot (probably too much) about the idea of 30. For some reason, 30 has always been a deadline kind of year. The internet is full of 30 before 30 bucket lists. I even have my own little countdown going on Instagram, though I promise you won't see me bungee jumping or trying to visit all 7 continents in the next 30 days. 

There is an expectation that comes with 30. At 30 you will have it together (or at least look like you do on social media). I certainly expected that I'd be married and ready to start thinking about babies by now. In fact, a majority of friends my age either: a. are married, b. own a home, c. have a kid, or d. all of the above.

It is easy to fall prey to the attitude that I am behind the curve, to get discouraged by thinking about the life I thought I would have by now, instead of being thankful for the incredibly blessed life I DO have already.

So, instead of a New Year's Resolution (which I never can keep anyway), I'm making 30 day resolution to stop worrying about where I'm supposed to be by the time I turn 30 and own the three decades of memories and accomplishments I have made so far. 

For the next 30 days, I will be sharing a different kind of 30 before 30. Each day (hopefully) from now until January 31, I am going to write a blog post about a moment that shaped my story. They may not be as easily celebrated on Facebook as a wedding or the birth of a child, but I have had some pretty significant life experiences, and I want to take the time, before the next decade begins to reflect on them here.

30 moments that shaped me. 30 moments that brought me to where I am today. Which, I am finally starting to believe, is exactly where I am supposed to be.

2. Find out what growing up really means

So,  I said I was going to write at least 27 blog posts about life at 27 by the time I turned 28.  Maybe I'll shoot for 30 posts by my 30th birthday?

Here's the truth. 27 has been a tough year for me. I've been processing a lot and wrestling a lot (in my mind, not as an athletic pursuit-- just in case that wasn't clear). There have been a lot of thoughts spinning around in my brain. Big thoughts. Thoughts about love and God and work and life. Too many thoughts to sift through and write down.

My early 20's were full of hope, excitement, prospect. I had dreams. I had plans. I was willing to move across the country with no clue what was ahead of me. I wanted to travel, see the world, make it a better place.

Then, somewhere along the way, I ran out of steam. Somewhere between the west coast and the east coast, my spirit changed. I started seeing heartbreak in the world rather than joy. My hopes withered. My worries grew. I started paying for health insurance, car insurance, cell phone bills. I didn't have money left to see all the places I wanted to. Anxiety set in.

I began to face the harsh reality that choosing a career in a field I thought I was passionate about might mean making so many sacrifices and fighting so many uphill battles that I may actually lose my passion for the work I thought I was made to do.

I started to deal with the fact that loving someone isn't always easy, communication is harder for me than I thought it was (I'm a good talker, not such a great listener, it turns out) and that my expectations when it comes to relationships (both romantic and platonic) might be a little one-sided.

I used to think that growing up meant checking off a checklist: Land awesome job. Get married. Buy  house. Have kids. Buy another house.  I know lots of people my age and younger who have checked almost all of those boxes by now. In Richmond more so than in the other cities I've lived (sometimes it feels like people here turn 30 at 24). Does that mean they're more grown up than me?

It's easy for me to believe that lie. (Facebook makes it easier). Because I haven't crossed any of those major things off of my list, I must somehow be less of an adult than those that have.

But here's the truth. Growing up is a process. And real maturity isn't actually about marital status, financial stability or home-ownership (though sometimes we learn lessons in those areas, too). It's about recognizing the places that you're weak and asking God to help you grow in those areas. It's about falling down and getting back up again. It's about hanging on to your faith and trusting that God has a plan even when life doesn't turn out the way you thought it would.

It's been five years since I graduated from college and externally it may not look like much has changed. I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. Still wondering if I should go to grad school. Still asking if I'll ever feel emotionally ready to get married or be a mom. But I am not the same person I was at 22. I have grown up. And I am growing still.