Renaissance Girl

So....I graduated college.

It was an entirely overwhelming weekend, mostly really good though. I am still getting used to the fact that I am no longer, technically, a student. Definitions of self get interesting at this point, though also more self-driven, which is exciting.

Today I have a meeting about puppetry. Wednesday an audition for Book-It, & check in about my part-time job. Friday my first day back at the cruise line. Around all of that I will be looking for a more semi-permanent job & solidifying art & canoodling BE in order to raise funds & audiences. I got things going on. Let's go.

Does it ever strike anyone else just how weird acting is?

(I could try to explain what I mean, but I'd rather just throw this out there & see if I get anything back. So.)

I am sitting on the couch in my apartment, soon to be no longer mine. Tonight is the last official night that I'll spend here. A load of things went home tonight; the rest of it (save the kitchen things) goes home tomorrow. I've been cleaning my old room at my parents' house to get ready--it's severely dusty in several places, & I found a spider about an inch and a half across living behind my bookshelf (as long as it stays there, I'm fine, but if it ventures toward my bed there Will Be Words, & also A Jar).

I'm not sure how I feel about leaving, actually. I stepped out on the balcony today to shake out a scarf and realized that I spent very little time on the balcony, which is silly, really. But it was awfully cold for most of the year. I'll miss living with Nikki & Erin; it's fun. I won't miss being downtown, though, for all it's convenient & urban & sophisticated; there's also loads of light pollution, noise, & garbage trucks at six am twenty feet below me.
On the other hand, I feel sort of stagnant moving back into my old room. Probably what I need to do is properly clear everything out, clean it, & put things back in different places. Or at least wash the windows. I've got stuck again--I think this is typical of this age, although it makes me feel silly & angsty to say so--stuck between wanting to stay young & childlike & unworried about things (or at least worried in a naive, unresponsible way), & wanting to jettison everything having to do with childhood, move out entirely, find my own place & be grownup, independent & the only one responsible for me.
The reality I suppose is somewhere in the middle, as it probably is for most people. I won't get rid of childhood things--some of them are still useful, some too sentimentally attached to get rid of; & even when I do move out of my parents' house entirely, I won't take everything with me, & it's not as if I can't go back to visit, & it's not as if I won't have other people taking care of me in various ways. Still. I never like being caught in the middle of anything.

On a far less introspective note, Erin & I are watching Chamber of Secrets on the telly, & after every commercial break there's a short snippet of behind-the-scenes what-have-you for Order of the Pheonix, & we're getting awfully excited for the movie. Tuesday at midnight! This week is going to start out fabulous (Joel's birthday, movie with Erin) & go rapidly downhill (wisdom teeth out on Thursday) but if all goes well & my teeth heal themselves, pick up again (Hitchhiker's opening on Friday, outdoor theater all weekend...). Come to that, as long as I don't feel ill or have really painful teeth, there's nothing bad about lounging on a couch eating sorbet & pudding & listening to books on tape. Kinda like being sick without having to feel sick.

I am sitting at the computer in the mezzanine of my apartment, since my own computer is still in the shop (& still no word; I assume that means it's being fixed & not replaced, but I really can't know for sure). The last time I was here it was September, I was about to begin my junior year of college, I had seen Wicked & Joel has just left for India.
It sort of feels like forever since then. Although I did say goodbye to Joel this morning for another ten weeks, so it's not entirely alien.

I saw Halcyon Days at the Bathhouse tonight--& wow, was it ever amazing. Beyond how good the play was it was interesting to sit there & watch the kids--some of whom I've actually acted with, some I've mentored, some I have no connection to beyond the tenuous thread of co-theatership... I feel disconnected from that, a little, in the way that I used to be, the highschool years of being able to throw myself into everything that came along for the youth drama ensemble. On the other hand I'm involved, still, it's not like I'm completely gone...but it is different. It's alumni, it's fundraising large amounts of money, it's talking to businesses & being official, it's being a responsible adult.

Add to that the fact that I was recently referred to an oral surgeon for my wisdom teeth removal, & the realization that I haven't been to a doctor in years nor do I actually have one, & you have a full-blown growing-up coming on. It isn't the fact that I need a doctor (which I don't, medically, but it's nice to have one in case you do), or that I'm getting my wisdom teeth out (which happens to pretty much everyone around this age). It's more the fact that I am the one that'll be calling the surgeon, I'm the one going to check about my insurance & whether I'm covered, or if not, I'm the one figuring out how to pay for it; I'm the one who needs to sit down with all her financial records & figure herself out, not to mention go to the bank tomorrow & cash another bond so be able to pay rent & tuition; I'm the one who, although generally sanguine about her future because she's learned that panic doesn't pay, still has moments of genuine fear about what on earth she's going to do with herself, what exactly is going to happen to her in the next few years, whether she'll ever actually learn the things she needs to know to be a real adult, & whether she can actually deal with being a grownup.

I was grown-up when I was six. I used big words, I was mature, I was smart. I stopped throwing tantrums at a fairly young age (though I still do occasionally). I was polite, I was considerate, & I was picked on in elementary school. I read books like they were going out of style--although I did not then, nor do I very much now, know what is in style. I never went to the hospital for a broken arm from doing something dumb. In fact, I was a ridiculously good child. I'm not exactly sorry for that; I'm not complaining; as childhoods go mine was fairly phenomenal. But I do wonder sometimes if I missed out on some essential things that one should do as a kid, before one grows up.

At the same time, while I am mature & intelligent & all responsible which I always have been, there are many things that responsible adults should know that I just don't. Like, how to do taxes. Could I honestly survive without my parents around doing things that I simply take for granted because I don't even know that they need doing? I suppose this should galvanize me into learning all these things that I need to be an adult. That's what I need. It isn't what I want. What I want right now is to crawl back into the quietly idyllic week I just had, & forget about taxes & forms & oral surgeons & insurance & tuition money. I can't, of course. & I won't. & tomorrow I'll probably feel fine about this, & ready to take on the world. In the long run, I'm not really worried about my optimism, only my knowledge base, & that's expandable. But not for now. For now, I push all that aside, I read Arcadia or John Donne, I curl up alone, & I look forward to tomorrow.