Today is the 5th July 2016 and I finished my first year at Drama School a week and 4 days ago.
When I think about my life this past year all I can think is that it has been a montage of loving and hating, not at different times, but simultaneously.
The course is beautiful and I love it, but for some bizarre reason I hate it also. Maybe it's because I don't fit in, maybe it's because it is hard, maybe it's because I don't know what can become of me after. I don't know.
But one thing I know for sure is that I hated every single minute of living in halls. It was like a prison. It was toxic. It was so damaging for mental health. I loathe that place now and I always will.
I came to realise this year that I am lonely, that I struggle with people, that I feel empty, that I don't belong, that I probably don't have any sort of good future that will come from this place, that unless I'm 'lucky' I'll suffer, that I'm poor, that I'm weak, that I'm sad and that I wish I'd taken a gap year and really thought about what I wanted to do with my life.
Drama School is so difficult to get into and believe me I don't say this lightly, but this past year has been the worst of my life.
"So why stay, when so many others are fighting to be in your position?" is what you're probably asking, and to be honest I've asked myself the same thing. And this is my answer: I fought to be here, I gave it my all and I got in, I knew it'd be hard, I'd even been told I'd probably hate it, but I see what the second and third years are doing in their classes and I want to do it! I think about what I'll do for my dissertation all the time and the thought sparks fires within me! I'm still fighting for this place even though I've got it and have been here a year, I am still fighting. I just don't know if it'll be worth it.
I'm a giver upper. I always have been. But I don't want to be that any more. I don't want to be the person who fails once or twice and packs it in. I want to be the person who fails hundreds of times but won't give up. And so yes first year has broken me in many ways, but I'm going to make second year fix me. I'm going to go into the year with a positive heart and I'm going to try.
Who knows where I'll be or what I'll be doing when this post is published?
I just hope I'm happy, and I hope I never gave up.
