Absence of peace...

One of the things I am finding as the holiday season begins the creep up on us is this overwhelming feeling that something is off or is missing. I am feeling this more so than ever this year. I could go on for a lifetime to talk about the crap going on around the world...but this is of a more personal nature. I am feeling dissatisfied and just plain off, for some reason.

There have been many hurdles I have had to jump over and through over the last six months and if I am going to be truthful and honest with you all, there are some weighty things on my heart. I look back on 2015 and it appears to be a year of unrest and of shaking up my core.

This all sounds so gloom and doom and not all of it is truthfully. Heck, I married the man of my dreams in June and things continue to be wedded bliss. For that I am grateful...but a major event like that is not for trials and tribulations preparing for the big day...it was an entire year of prepping, and working, and dreaming, and hoping and crying and laughing. I learned much about who my family truly is, what it means to be truly humbled, and to truly feel the strong sense of love and light from the entire day. We just felt WRAPPED in all of the love and it is a day I know Justin and I will NEVER forget. But getting to that day was A LOT.

There was a great deal of undercurrent not many know that was occurring at the same time as all the wedding pace was being set. I have been reaching out and taking steps and trying to find my place in the world. I have been struggling with this for many years. I come from a STRONG-willed family who like to keep control of everything. When I was just out of grad school, my first acting contract did not go as it should have and was not as smooth as it should have been shall we say...my Grandpa and Grandma Higdem immediately jumped on the wagon of "You need to forget this whole acting thing and go into teaching and education. Its much more stable and honest and forthright." My father jumped on this bandwagon as well...But I had dreams and passions of learning the theater business...both from an actor's stand point as well as a directors. I felt the need to chart my own course and see what the arts had in store for me. I ended up in Omaha, working in retail and working in theater and never was able to find the 24/7 job in theater, where my heart was longing.

Many of you know my life. Know my path. Know my heart...but now you can see that once I steered away from retail and headed toward education, I felt like I found an intriguing niche if you will...but it was those ever present voices in the back of my head saying I SHOULD do this...that it was STABLE...that it was HONEST. All of these voices cause unrest and the idea of settling for this when I should maintain my course towards artistic fulfillment...HELL I even moved to NYC in 2001 to continue to follow the course I thought I was supposed to be on...

Truth be told, education, I have learned, is anything but HONEST at times and is just as politically driven if not more.  I completely understand that I live in a Utopian frame of mind and perhaps a little la la as well...but I have also learned that the routes so many districts now take, building monstrosities placing so much importance on the likes of sports and the ever glorious football, leaving the idea of academics and the arts to fend for themselves has left a awful taste in my mouth. I understand all of the important aspects sports brings to the student's lives, but it is NOT all about sports. You take one look at American society and how much we pay our athletes, the role models of our children, and many of them struggle to read a book or understand the importance of creative thought... Many of our college students cannot understand the writing of a strong thesis statement but can tell you who won this year's World Series and how they are going to be the next successful athlete. SERIOUSLY???
All of this has left me with distaste and a "What am I missing here? Should I have turned my back on pursuing my dream and ultimate goal?" and has left me longing for something different. Don't even get me started on classroom management and the attitude of students these days in America's classrooms. SAD. Just plain SAD.

I have kept my eye to the artistic grind stone and have applied for artistic directing positions across the country. I have had many opportunities some of which were very eye-opening and frustrating and exciting and jarring. All have been learning experiences along the way, have filled me with self-doubt, and have made me more and more dissatisfied with my current life course. There is an absence of peace in my life and in my heart...

But am I being realistic to pursue these dreams? These passions? Is it realistic for me to look to the proverbial quotes I share on this blog and hope and dream for a different outcome? I do hope so. Many say, but you are so good at teaching. The kids love you. Teaching is in your blood. To which I say yes to a point. I firmly admit that I do love working with my students. They are the drive to go to work every day.  But when years ago, someone in your family tells you this and ignores your dreams and passions pushing instead for the aspects of SAFETY and SECURITY, never having to step foot into a current classroom setting,  and tries to argue it out with you all because the very first moment of artistic work was not what you had dreamed...you can see why I am left with nothing but distaste and discontent.

I continue to remind myself that there is so much there under the current that I want to pursue, have pursued, and have been beaten down so far, but am also reminded of Theodore Roosevelt's quote I come to from time to time:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” 
― Theodore Roosevelt

Carry on, my fellow sojourners.
My love to you.