Always found myself
Following the rules
Pressured by the moves
I was making
Put it on a shelf
The ticket I had mulled
Watching her depart
From the station
For that moment I was stone cold sober
Where did I belong
Stuck between packing my folders
And writing a new song
New Train. This song brought tears to my eyes every time I listened. To me the lyrics and the music represented everything in my heart that I was so scared to say at the time. I didn’t want to attend any other school than the one I had picked out (and been accepted to) and yet that one had been around two-hundred thousand dollars more than my family could afford at the time. Even on the scholarship the school offered me. My father asked me to attend the local community college for a year or two and then finish with my chosen school, but I was wholly against that idea to the point where even thinking of it made me emotional. I was so angry at the idea of having to hold myself back for something I believed was extremely small. That being the amount of money compared to the amount of ‘talent’ I believed I had. Now hear me out, I know that sounds a little bratty. Believe me, I knew in the moment that I was fighting for something that I simply could not have when I wanted it. Did that break my heart any less? Hell no. Did it make me believe I could do bad all by myself? Hell yes. I knew that I was angry because I didn’t want any part of whatever core classes a college offered and I knew I would constantly feel like I was wasting my time by going. It didn't matter to me to be generally smart if I already knew with my entire heart how I wanted my life to go. I was already the girl to rehearse 24/7 and push to collect even while being given a bum hand. I thought I could finally just work on being a vocalist, actor, and dancer without having any resistance. But that's not how life works. So I said screw the entire idea of going to college and I decided to just work my ass off until I found where I wanted to go.
I no longer believe in the idea of talent. I believe that everything you have you must work for. You can have a preference to work on robotics or to draw cute photos, but your dreams and ‘talent’ I believe first come from a genuine and pure enjoyment of a hobby. After you find what you enjoy you make a conscious decision to be better every time you do that thing. You find classes, look up YouTube videos, google methods to be better. Then suddenly everyone believes that its talent once you emerge ten years past the day you first set your eyes on that hobby. I think attending the performing arts school would have gotten me to the same ideology, but I think in my head everything would still be highlighted in ‘talent’. In that murky mess I would still feel like a frustrated adolescent that thought that simply showing up would get me everywhere I needed to be. In that girl's head hard work would be ranked under her pure ‘talent’ and in about forty or fifty years her voice would be shot like the rest of the singers that thought they could get by on vocal strain and ‘talent’ with no technique. In that girl's head she would giggle every time anyone ever critiqued her because of the idea her talent would get her everywhere. I suppose that might explain the anger towards the lack of funds.
Surprisingly enough, I do not regret the decision to not go to school. Me choosing to work and try my hand at motivating myself to make content on my own has created an entirely new me. Choosing to hop on my new train and change my life has helped me to enrich my life with love, creativity, and happiness. If I hadn't stopped and reflected for the past few years I believe that I would still be angry. If I had not stopped to smell the roses in my life I know that I would still feel so lost. Of course I also realize what the value of that amount of money is and how long it might take to acquire that. I have long since abandoned that anger and turned it into forgiveness for myself for choosing to be negative. If I continue to entertain bitterness I believe that karma will show in a horrific end to my realized dreams. Hell, I don't even know if I would have stayed at the school for that long seeing as how much I hate sitting down in a school/lecture type environment. It's silly to even think that I wouldn’t have wanted my independence as an artist as soon as humanly possible after high school. Especially because I enjoy it so much now.
Comentários