Throughout most of my grade school career I planned rather intently on getting a performing arts degree. When I was in ninth grade, I even printed out the application packet for Berklee College of Music so I could practice filling it out, see what they were looking for, and make sure I was prepared when I had to apply for real in a few years. I read about life in Boston and decided it sounded like the kind of city I'd like to attend school in.
When I found myself in an empty auditorium I would stand on the stage and imagine myself performing in front of thousands of people. It felt like the one thing I needed in all the world -- not in the way that every 12-year-old wants to be a rock star, but in the way we fine arts people really feel intensely about our craft. It's our need to create.
How or why that life plan got derailed isn't important here, but I've spent some time in my life since then reconciling my dreams with the reality. I never went to Berklee, and I'm certainly not performing now. I do marketing and fundraising for a cool non-profit in Baltimore -- I love it, but one could certainly define it as a "day job" given my background.
But there's something that exists now that we never even dreamed of when I was in high school: social media. Thinking about my "team sports" post from a few days ago, I feel like all is not lost in terms of being able to share that kind of thing. I don't need to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra as a career to feel like I've gone down the right path in life. Like I said, I really do like my job. I'm working on writing a novel. I'm doing things that genuinely make me happy. And if I could be just a little bit like this girl, doing 180 degree reinterpretations of songs and looking unbearably cute and happy, I think that'd be just fine by me.
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