Le Fabuleux Destin d' Emily

Life.

I haven’t written in such a long time on here. 

Lately, I feel the need to write more. I feel like so much is happening in my life, so fast, so rapidly, and I’m just trying to stay above the water. 

I guess I’ll talk about some “good” things. Yes, I put good in quotations…because…well, life is hard right now, and I feel like I’m in survival mode, which I am. I’m trying to become independent and live on my own, without any assistance from anyone for the first time ever. It’s scary and confusing, but it will be good once it’s all figured out. I just got hired at Posados and have been training for the past week to be a waitress. It’s exhausting, but it will bring me some money, which is desperately need. So, I’ve been waking up at 6:30 every morning to student teaching, leaving the school at 4:20, and then I go straight to Posados to work the night shift. I’m also about to sign the lease for an apartment on Main Street. It’s brand new, which will be nice, but I will be living on my own, which will be weird. And, I’ll have to pay all of the bills and everything on my own…it’s going to be rough, but I’ll make it work. I’m just praying to land a teaching position near here, that way I’ll only have to live in poverty for a few months. 

“Why don’t you just go back home, Emily? That seems so much easier” you say…..Well, it’s because….I don’t have a home. I mean, I suppose I’ll have a room….but, “home” doesn’t exist anymore. I wish it did. I wish my Mom would come back….but the future looks bleak and grim….and now my dad is living alone, heartbroken, inside a house full of memories. And, I can’t choose sides. What kind of daughter would I be if I did that? I love both of my parents too much to do that. But, going home would just cause me heartbreak as well…So, I suppose now is a better time than any to create a home for myself. 

“But, Emily, why stay in Nac? Why don’t you go to New York? Why don’t you travel the world?” you say….Well, I would love to…and I do plan to. It just can’t happen now, and it may not happen for a few years. But, I’m not going to become complacent, and I’m not going to settle. I can’t do that. I love challenging myself too much. I know people are worried about me…I even have relatives who think I’m making awful decisions and that I’m not living to my full potential….They think I should go travel the world right now…But, I want to do it with my money. I want to do it, because I made it happen…Not because I had to ask for someone else to provide me with it…I’ve relied on others my whole life….And now, I need to rely on myself. 

Anyway, here’s to job interviewing…and here’s to finally fitting all the pieces together…At least, the pieces of my life…The pieces I can control. 

Till next time, 

-Emily <3 

Reflecting and New Year’s Resolutions

Well, I feel the urge to write on here since I haven’t in so long.

Looking back on 2012 so much has changed, but for the good. I lost myself, then found myself, I made a plan, and then it completely changed one fateful night…funny how life works, huh? But, I wouldn’t change a thing about this year. Really, so much good has happened that even if something bad happened, it must have been very slight or trivial. So, here are the things I experienced and learned in 2012: Partying with cross country boys too often never leads to anything good. NYC is a wonderful place to go to find inspiration and passion and to feel energized and alive. It’s a city unlike any other and I hope I never forget how that city made me feel and all the fun times I had there. It also made me map out a plan for my life…I thought I had it all figured out. Stay single, do whatever it takes to get to NYC, audition and hopefully land a role in a children’s theatre company, and then travel around the country for a year or so and live out of NYC. How adventurous and bold that would have been! But then, it seems as if my fate changed only a week after leaving NYC. I met a man named Phillip who took me to a lake to look at stars….seems like it should take more than just that to take a life plan that I made for myself away so fast, right? Maybe so….but, I may not have been quite so happy. (Anyway, that’s a completely different topic all together). In May I was bluntly told “the truth” in front of about a hundred other people, but then I realized that one or even a group of people’s “truth” about my life really isn’t my truth of my life and that falsely judging someone is so wrong on so many levels, because none of them ever got to know me and the person I truly am, anyway. In June I began acting in my first feature film. It was honestly a blast and one of the best experiences I’ve had in college. I also went to Shreveport for the first time ever and gambled for the first time ever, went to camp tonkawa for the first time, traveled the Houston to see the free press summer fest, went to Austin to film on 6th street, and visited my brother in Oklahoma City. I also did high school workshop again and co-directed with one of my best friends, Mai Le, and our show won! This summer was probably the best summer of my life. Then when the fall semester began, I had to make preparations to directed my downstage, Miracle at Blaise and to dramaturg The Madwoman of Chaillot. Both shows helped me to learn a lot and grow as a director and performer through observation. I also thoroughly enjoyed my advanced acting and poetry classes, too. I feel like I gained so much new knowledge this past semester. I also interned at Lufkin high school for 5 hours a week….which was an experience to say the least. And now, I am back home in Mesquite before I leave for Nacogdoches on Saturday and then drive to Austin to bring in the New Year at Enchanted Rock.

Speaking of New Years, I’ve come up with a few resolutions for myself….the first being to stay true to myself, but be more open and take more risks. I don’t want to always play it safe. Having security is fine, but I don’t want my life to be safe and I don’t want to live with regrets…much like Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit. I think I’ve realized that my first life plan might be a bit unrealistic now, but I think I want to pursue writing…it was my first passion before theatre, after all, and I’ve found that while I love theatre and I love acting, for some reason I find just a bit more fulfillment through writing. I think I also should let my gut guide me this upcoming year. I keep questioning, “what am I going to do once I graduate?” But I think my gut knows that answer…perhaps even more so than my brain. A few more resolutions that are more on the light hearted side include: running everyday for a full year- at least one mile a day! Traveling out of the country, learn more French and start learning Spanish, take care of my body and eat right, get on a good sleep schedule, send my writing work off to publishers, audition for shows when I can, write something everyday, find a job that i am content with, and then move to wherever would be a good fit for me. So, these things will hopefully be accomplished by the end of 2013!

Well, it’s getting late and I should probably go ahead and work on my sleep schedule. So, goodnight, and I hope to write some more soon.