BEDA Day One

This week is hell week for the School of Music's production of Bernstein's Mass, which I am in. Clearly. Why else would I be talking about it? Anyway, I call it hell week but as hell weeks go, it's relatively light: three and a half hour rehearsals each night are small potatoes when compared to the 7PM - 1AM runs we have during show weeks for NRT. I guess the difference here is that I did not volunteer for this, and if it did not exist, I'd be headed to Florida at the end of the week. Oh well.

Today's rehearsal was actually pretty cool. It was the first time I'd heard the whole thing and seen the movement and set and lighting design, etc. I loved seeing how something that has seemed so abstract to me for so long actually has a shape, one that I might hazard to say is pretty beautiful. Since I sit onstage the whole time (onstage being a loose interpretation of the word; I'm mostly behind a curtain), I had a lot of time today to think about the meaning of the production. It's not really a musical, and little, if anything, is actually spelled out for you. Sitting there, counting the measures until my next bout of singing, I was analyzing the symbolism within the piece, and for the first time ever, I started to feel like a future English teacher. Maybe I should take this as a sign that I really am on the right path.

I've had these moments of so-called clarity before, though and they always collapse back into uncertainty and doubt. Never once in my life have I felt "called" to be a teacher, yet that is what I am studying, paying thousands of dollars, to become. Honestly, I would love nothing more than for the writing thing to work out. That is what I want to do more than anything else.
Whew.
It has been a long time since I actually admitted that to anybody. What is it about this society that has made me afraid not only to go after my dreams, but to merely acknowledge their existence? So many of my friends are going for their dreams, even when many of them are close to impossible. How are they brave enough? Or maybe the better question to ask would be: why am I not brave enough? I would consider myself a fairly strong person. At least, stronger than many people my age I know. So why is this one thing so hard for me? Why am I so scared?