This year was really weird... I don’t consider it much more than a growing period. Some really amazing things happened, but I kind of only remember them in chunks.
do not reblog this.
The beginning of the year, I went on an audition rampage. I did it mostly for experience, but I auditioned A LOT. Trying to do that again this year, but I think it’s put into perspective that I consider myself more of an actor now than a singer/ dancer. I feel a little disappointed but it’s just a thing...
Then I got trained at Enchanted Tales with Belle only to get stuck there. Fourteen hour days herding cats for five days a week proved exhausting and burnt me out, but it lead to one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. I do enjoy my nights at Tales and at the end of the day I do enjoy the venue. I just know that I prefer to not do doubles there anymore and that I need more variety to be happy. I am honored to be a Tales attendant, but I need to be a regular attendant as well to be happy.
Then I found Miss Peregrine. The Peculiar children helped give me something to nerd out about again, as I hadn’t really had a fandom (regardless of the fact that I didn’t join the actual fandom) since before the new year. She also helped spark my love for Toothsome and gave me a safe space. (I figured if I had to chose a Peculiarity, it would be voice manipulation; to be able to immitate voices and sounds, throw my voice around, and have control of the volume.)
On a whim to get scheduled anything besides Enchanted Tales with Belle, I decided to sign up for a new Incredibles offering. I had been very fond of the Incredibles when I was younger, but now I was indifferent. I remember liking the old Incredibles dance party, but again this was just an extra thing to be trained in so I didn’t have to be stuck in the library. This has since proved to be one of the best decisions of my life. I ended up being trained for our Incredible Tomorrowland Expo and through that was reintroduced to the Incredibles.
Through this job, I found Voyd. I started drawing again. I finally became part of a fandom (I feel like I lurked a lot in fandoms but never truly felt quite important or valuable in one). I learned to accept myself. I found love and enjoyed my work. I felt accepted and finally like I had something to put back into the world. I found some of the best friends I could ever ask for (whom I still talk to daily, who actually get excited to “see” me). I found a real life hero to look up to in Sophia Bush, which helped (and helps) me to understand life on a different perspective. I miss the Expo every day, but I’m so happy that I took away so much from it and that I got to be a part in making it such an Incredible Summer at the Magic Kingdom, even if my part was arguably the smallest. We danced in the rain, we watched too much Nailed It. We found out that Mushu is actually really unsanitary. We got 15,000 plus steps a day (but still looked fabulous). We had Supers, and then we replaced some (yikes). We had Super Super Fans, some Wannabe Wannabes (which was also the first Audition that I truly chickened out of this year, but I’m thankful for the role I had in Incredible Summer- everything happens for a reason, and I’m certain that if things had happened differently, I wouldn’t have connected to Voyd as much). This is truly the highlight of my year and I am so blessed to have been a part of it.
Right when Incredible Summer ended (on Loop Day woot woot), I was able to go straight into Halloween Horror Nights. This year was really challenging for me because nothing clicked right. It ended up being really kind of lonely despite having some amazing friends. It just felt lonely? Add that to the feeling of never being good enough in my role, and let’s just say that HHN was hard for me this year. It was fun and I had a good time, I made some good friends on set and backstage, but it was just hard to know that I wasn’t good enough as a performer and that I was constantly reminded that I was also a bad person.
The Christmas season didn’t feel much like it, but it was the first time in a long time I’ve been excited for Christmas, which is weird considering that I thought this Christmas would be terribly hard because of it being the first anniversary since a friend committed suicide. I was selected to be trained at a Christmas show, so that was pretty amazing, although challenging. And then there was the Tumblr fiasco where I got flagged as explicit but we won’t get into that.
I don’t really know what this year was, but I remember very vividly this time last year a manager went around the break room and asked us all what our New Years resolutions were. I was going through a rough, empty, confusing patch at the time, and I said that all I really wanted to do was be able to get through the next few weeks (I couldn’t fathom a year) and try to learn how to heal. I think I’ve grown a lot and things have definitely become clearer, but this year also feels like a blur.
I don’t know if I like the idea of a sharp ending. For me it feels like the new year has just been slowly fading in. But I hope to continue to grow and learn and try. I know I’m not perfect and I never will be, but “you are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously,” so the only thing I can do is continue to grow and make mistakes and to try to learn not to be afraid of that.
I wish everyone the best of New Years, whatever that means to you. I wish you peace and understanding and joy and happiness and health and comfort and stability- whether that be spiritual, financial, mental, physical or any other interpretation that you need right now. I love you all and want nothing but the best for you this year.
Okay, but you know what else I don’t understand? Why do people take candids of famous people?? Why do you need a picture of this ordinary human being buying an artichoke?? Why??
