Master of None

I wasn't a kid who dreamed. I'd love to play pretend, I'd be a dinosaur (due to an unhealthy obsession with the Land Before Time) or whatever Disney princess was in vogue that year. Mostly, I just did everything that my sister did, because she was two years older than me, and therefore knew what was cool.

We'd put on little skits for our parents along with our cousins, on those rare occasions when we all scraped together enough free time to see each other. I enjoyed it well enough, but I mostly took a back seat to my sister, the director or to my baby brother who could steal any show with his irritating cuteness.

I had only one passion--to be remarkable.

I just hadn't quite figured out what I was remarkable at.

I'm not sure if my passion for writing really began as such. I don't recall feeling some desperate need to put my words on paper. I didn't have a strong urge to pen the great American novel. The true story is quite boring, and actually quite vain. We did a unit of poetry in my sixth grade English class. And I was good at it. So good, in fact, that they hung one of my poems up in a frame--a forever relic of some faint talent I might have once thought I had.

That's all I needed. That was my ticket. My way to be remarkable.

Except, eventually the poetry unit ended. And the world moved on and I was left with writings that no one would ever read. But I never stopped.

I wrote my way through middle school, though I lost the confidence to believe that I had a talent for it. As childish optimism shifted into preteen moodiness, I felt a compelling urge to make everything dark, dour and depressive. I saturated myself in the Smiths and the Cure and considered the darkness to be a deep well that only I could understand.

I was a twat in middle school.

But it was also the place that I developed my second love, for music. My poems suddenly became songs, and as I fumbled an attempted accompaniment on a Cassio keyboard, I crooned lyrics that I thought would make Morrissey proud. I enjoyed crafting rhymes, and singing though I'm mediocre at best at the latter. But it wasn't enough. The lyrics were empty to me, they needed more context, more world building.

Enter Jonathan Larson. I watched the musical Rent and it changed my perspective on everything. One song glory became my mantra and I developed a fascination and reverence--not to the story of Rent, exactly--but to the story of its creator a thirty five year old who worked at a diner and then penned one of the greatest musicals of all time, only to die before he could truly see his dream achieved.

It's a tragedy that I took as a strange life purpose. I wanted to be Jonathan Larson. I wanted to pen the next great American musical. There was only one problem: I couldn't write music. I also couldn't play any instruments or sing very well, so this dream was always unattainable. But I came away with a singular sensation which was the dream to leave a legacy of art behind me when I die.

My focus shifted once again in high school, when I got my hands on a camcorder and began to fancy myself an amateur filmmaker. I spent my time watching obscure indie films and questioning the meaning of life within them. I annoyed my family by filming every waking moment of our family vacations. I really thought that this was the winner. I even talked about going to film school. This was my new ticket out.

But I let my parents beat reality into my head, and instead of going to film school at Northwestern or NYU, I followed my sister, like I had always done, to study nursing at Ball State.

It was the worst year of my life.

And more than a decade later, staring down my life as a college dropout, professional slacker, would-be writer, musician, and film connoisseur, I realize--admittedly a bit too late that my true dream was to be a prodigal.

I wanted to be some child miracle who rose above their lot in life, and through passion and determination, achieved impossible things.

I'm thirty now, far too old to be a prodigal. And the truth is I failed at everything I attempted to do. But now, looking back, in all that failure I found my true voice. Because when I was younger, everything I did was a show, for an audience. I was never truly driven, because I was only doing what I thought would make me remarkable to everybody else.

And the truth is, I'm not remarkable. I'll probably never be noteworthy. But I love the art of crafting words. I love the feeling of finding new music. I love to get lost in the worlds of musicals in the surprise of great cinema. I can do all of these things, just for me. And sure, I'll never be Jonathan Larson. He'd already achieved more in thirty-five years than I'd ever hope to in my life. But I can take his life-changing message to heart--there's no day like today.

I'm not the best, but I'm getting better the more I write. And I find ideas surge through me like electricity. I'm more alive and free now then I ever was as a child. It's not a profound passion. It's not a torch I can carry through a darkened tunnel. But it's at least a candle. And though the road is dark, I can just see it, enough to stumble my way into the light.

I don't expect anyone to follow me there. Why follow the girl holding only a candle? The torch burns bright with charisma and passion, it only makes sense to follow that brilliant light.

I never know where my dark road will take me. It's exciting within the unknown. I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none. But I finally figured out that the point is, I'll never be done.