Student Blog: You're Only Twenty Once

“What’s next?”

I’m twenty. 

I think that there’s this overwhelming pressure as a young musical theatre artist to always be working on something. It’s not necessarily a bad thing because it gives me motivation to work hard, but this is the first summer in years where I’ve not actively been working on a project. I’m not taking any classes, I’m not working on a show, I’m not doing anything. Granted, this has led to much self reflection because I’m twenty. I don’t have it all figured out, and thank god for that, yet when I look around at my peers working internships and booking summer stock gigs, I’m terrified. 

I think I speak for more than just myself when I say that there is this suffocating pressure bursting out of that romanticized BFA lifestyle. Sometimes the weight is so heavy that missing a class feels like the end of your career because now you’re thousands of steps behind your peers when in reality your career hasn’t even begun and it’s only one class. This summer I’m un-learning that. Missing a class every once and a while is natural. Not booking every show I audition for is realistic. Resting over the summer? Guess what? Normal. Warranted, even. I’m a human artist, not a well maintained robot with my middle splits and a high belt. I forget that a lot. I think that comparison can aid in this belief that you have to be working to be worth something, but it’s impossible to do it all.

I’m going into my fourth year of college, my third at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, where I’m pursuing a double major in Musical Theatre and a Public Relations and Strategic Communication, with a Music Industry minor. Last year, I worked what I’d call “four and a half” jobs, two on campus part time jobs, one on campus internship, one off campus internship, and freelancing social media work. I had over a full load of classes in the fall semester and even joined student government in the spring. During this period of time, it still felt as though I wasn’t doing enough. There was a week in the fall where I was in the hospital and I still was kicking myself for not being able to send in fresh self tapes. What. 

This summer I still feel pressure to work, don’t get me wrong. I think sometimes I put all my worth into that. However, that’s not beneficial or even remotely healthy. I’m only twenty years old and I have to remember that I'm young. There’s no timeline to Broadway, no timeline to a career or a family or a job, but I only have one life and there’s only ever going to be one me. 

One of my favorite professors always tells us that there is “Nothing to prove, only to share.” Their last words to me before the end of the school year were actually to be kinder to myself. Not to push myself harder, not to keep training over the summer, but to “be kinder.” There’s no amount of TedTalks or masterclasses or summer training that’s going to definitively decide who I’ll be. I get to decide that. And this summer, I don’t know what’s coming next, I don’t even always know what is happening now, but I know that I’ve got to be kind to myself because you’re only twenty once.