“Slow down” was the number one note I received from my high school theatre director.
I always cringed when he repeated it and silently raged about his words behind closed doors. But, honestly? He was right.
When I stepped on stage, I never felt uncomfortable or scared to perform. My problem was figuring out how to make myself want to be there. I wanted to look out into a crowd and feel an overwhelming sense of pride in my talent, but I didn’t feel anything at all.
So my words often stumbled out all at once, rushing to finish a line or monologue I didn’t find natural, funny or interesting. I wasn’t a bad actress; my directors and castmates knew that.
But I wasn’t a good one, either.
In theatre, they call it a “beat”: a stage direction that notes a pause in a character’s line delivery. I always ignored those directions, because I felt my performance was already good.
Though I might have been able to capture emotions from a script without beats and transfer it to the stage flawlessly, none of that mattered if I didn’t give myself a moment to breathe.
And I feel like that pretty much sums up how I feel constantly.
I keep rigid expectations for myself to always achieve the closest thing to perfection. This year, however, has shown me that life will throw hurdles at you – ones that are inherently flawed, and I had to be okay with that.
I have fewer friends than I did before this year, though I don’t regret my decision to cut people off, and I’ve dealt with the loss of financial stability and lack of proper mental health care. But I’ve also taken more opportunities and challenged myself to go further.
With these opportunities came my stumbling words, and I realized that I had to set aside my expectations to relearn how to breathe again, something my high school self would have rolled her eyes at.
A fast-paced mindset is all I’ve ever known, so it hasn’t been easy giving myself the grace to understand that life isn’t perfect. I’m a work in progress, but I think that’s okay.
Life isn’t the same as a script; I can’t just change the plot just because it’s hard or it doesn’t make sense to me.
I can speak slower, though.
