where do we go from here…?
I did it. I graduated!
I truly never thought I would be able to say that I went back to college after almost a decade and not only completed a degree in something that I am passionate about but excelled at it. And to think that this whole journey began when I was at a low point in my life.
It was October of 2020. Quarantine had kept us all locked up for almost a year. My good friend and roommate had moved back home in July, and I was living on my own with my two dogs for the first time. And then I lost my job, too. I had no idea what I was going to do.
But then I took a step back and looked at the situation from a different perspective. I could take the six months of unemployment benefits I would receive and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. The world was changing, and it was time that I changed along with it.
In the days and weeks that followed losing my job, I went on a Halloween trip with a group of friends to the mountains at Big Bear. It was Oktoberfest weekend, and we hiked, played drinking games, and ate everything in sight. When I arrived back in LA the Monday after, another friend called and offered me the opportunity to fly to New York with him the next day to help write a movie. And that was my sign.
That trip to New York didn’t end up being the best. My friend got food poisoning the day we arrived and was in bed for 95% of the trip, while I was working with someone I’d never met and doing things I’d never done. I’d never written a movie. I didn’t know how to outline or write a page of coverage. But I faked it as best as I could. And I knew that I needed to finally chase that dream.
I applied to The Los Angeles Film School and got in, and within a month of deciding to truly go after a writing career, I met the love of my life. A month after that, on the day that my unemployment benefits ran out, I started a new job at the best company I’ve ever worked for. Everything was falling into place. I saw the life I had always dreamed of being built right in front of me, and I was the one laying the foundation.
Over the course of my program, I worked full-time, traveled domestically and internationally for major milestones in my friends and family’s lives, and managed to maintain a perfect GPA. I had never been prouder of myself. And then all of a sudden, it was time to graduate.
My parents flew out from Connecticut for the ceremony, and I asked my mom to bring any old works of writing she could find from when I was a kid. The night before I’d received my diploma, we sat and looked over a journal I had from the second grade. I had written I wanted to grow up to be on Broadway and to be a famous writer. While I never made it to the Great White Way, I am a professional dancer and now, a professional writer.
If I could go back in time and talk to eight-year-old me, I think he would think I was the coolest person he’s ever met. When I look in the mirror now, I finally feel the same way.
