The "What-If" Week

For the past week I've been in Spokane, WA with 12 other beautiful people at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. The week has been full of workshops, auditions, presentations, response sessions, invited productions, deep conversations over dinner or a walk, and coffee shop homework sessions. It has been a very full week but in an incredibly different way then my day-to-day chaotic rhythms at home. 

As we have removed ourselves from our daily classes, rehearsals, and rhythms - or as my professor has said, entered the Twilight Zone - many of us have found ourselves in spaces of 'what-if?' Not the 'what - if' that questions and regrets the past, but the 'what - if 'that dreams about the future, actually allowing judgment to subside for a moment and consider possibility. 

Tuesday, my friend sent our group chat a text: "you guys I made a journalism pitch and they all really liked it" followed by, "my little anxious introverted self just got such a confidence boost lol."

We were so proud of her. This friend, a communications major assistant directing our spring musical back home, was pursuing the journalism track at KCACTF this week. Later in the day, after sending these texts about her success in pitching her article ideas and after reviewing several theatre productions, she turned to me and said that this week has been a bit of a "what-if" week for her..."what if I pursued journalism?" she asked thoughtfully and with a sparkle of wonder in her eye. She is an incredible artist, a clear communicator, and has a smart and creative eye for journalistic stories. Her opinions and analysis of the art she consumes captivates my ear in all of our conversations. 

Her comment about this being a "what-if" week has stuck in my mind...this week I have experienced so many emotions about the future. Hesitancy and confusion over what my interests and desires are after graduation. My love of theatrical craft, from acting to directing to production, has been re-stoked this week but along with it has come the surfacing of anxieties, doubts, and insecurities in my work as an artist. 

Grief over the end of my time as a student at Fox, has also surfaced. Grief at ending my learning under the mentors I've been blessed with, working under my incredible employer (shout out Kathy), and learning and crafting art alongside my peers in an academic and relatively safe setting to fail, learn, and grow. These things have been beautiful gifts and my heart breaks as my time engaging with them in the way I have is ending. A new world of possibilities is opening up and it's beautiful and exciting, but terrifying. 

This week, as I've piled into hotel rooms with all my friends to work on resumes and audition forms, I've found my mind sparkling at some of the artistic possibilities of the future. I've found my heart warmed by the community and the 'what-if' of working with them again outside of Fox. And I've found my mind absolutely boggled at the thought of being an adult outside of the academic world. I've watched my friends entertain, outloud, for perhaps the first time, the idea of pursuing acting, or makeup design, or journalism. The idea that it could be more than a distant dream. Seeing the potential in themselves and each other and finally speaking it out. 

What a wonderful gift it is, to think and talk about all the unknowns with a group of people so creative and compassionate. With friends who listen with such grace and patience. And to endeavor to edit resumes and prepare audition materials together. To put in the 'what-if ' work that takes a chance on the potential of ourselves and this world. And maybe, all this thinking and wondering and acting on these ideas, is a little step of faith. An act of trust in the potential of God and the opportunies He might lead us to. Knocking on doors and trusting He will open the one He wants to lead us down. Trusting that maybe no seed He has planted is too ridiculous for Him. And trusting that if those seeds of ideas and opportunities and desires don't blossom the way we think they will, that He will lead us somewhere else, but also trusting that our present wonder is not wasted. 

I'm thankful for this 'what-if' week. As emotional as it has been at moments, both in sparkly and difficult ways, it has allowed me to be a bit of a dreamer. To process insecurities and doubts hiding themselves in my ambition and ego, and re-enter a state of wonder as I knock on doors in this season approaching graduation. 

What - if...

Sincerely, 

Sophi