Realizations Don't Happen in One Moment

When I came to Costa Rica, I came with the hope that giving myself space, breathing, and taking my time would lead me to this sudden realization of what I wanted to do with my life. 

The truth is, at least for me, that realizations like this don't happen all at once in one moment.  They don't go "pum" like a light being turned on in a dark room.  No.  They sneak up on you like the slow change of seasons.  Like a tree slowly reaching up through a forest canopy towards the sky. 

I can't even pinpoint when I decided to pursue my MFA in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities. Maybe it was back in undergrad when I always felt it was in my future to someday go to graduate school. 

Maybe it was while teaching middle school where a nagging feeling told me to keep going - that this wasn't my ending place, that there was more I needed to be doing.

Maybe it was when I looked up grad programs on line before I left the country and hurriedly decided to take the GRE "just in case,"  spending my last few weeks in the US studying all day at Beyond Bread and Miss Saigon... carrying my GRE book to each appointment I had just in case there was spare time to study.

Maybe it was when I decided I couldn't do the math and told my dad I wasn't going to take the test after all. Then, it was the moment that I changed my mind and kept going. 

Maybe it was when my friend, Michael, posted an NPR article on Face Book about an improv troupe using improv with Alzheimer patients and I said - "I want to do this work." 

Maybe it was in the van ride to a rural school in Costa Rica when I told Ramona that what I cared most about was helping young people develop and communicate through drama activities.

Maybe it was all those days that my projects here fell apart and I had to build them again.  The students that dropped out, the classes that randomly died.  

Maybe it was  the day in early November when I made a list of the goals I still wanted to accomplish in CR and the only things I wrote were enjoying what I had created. 

Maybe it was the moment I got online after making that list of goals and learned that I only had a month to apply for the program I really wanted to attend.   The moment that the fear of failure and the fear of success and the crying and the overwhelmedness didn't stop me.  The moment that my friends and mentors wrote those recommendations in a month with Thanksgiving and the end of the semester.  The moment I trusted enough in the process to buy my plane ticket when I wanted to say no.

Maybe it was actually in every breath and every step I've taken - In every project I've dreamed up and then although unprepared and scared.. somehow had the courage to bring to life anyway. 

There are many days that the thoughts in my head get to loud.  The nights that the space between these thoughts gets to short.  Those days, the doubts win.  The voices that say things like "What if you don't like it in the US?"  "What if you don't fit in there?"  "What if you're sick of studying theatre ed... you got your undergrad in that... why are you doing that again anyway?... you didn't learn enough the first time?" "What if you forget Spanish?  You worked so hard to learn it."  "You don't like US culture.  People there are so negative."  "What are you going to do after you graduate?"  "Will you be able to work in that field?"  "Where will you live?"  "Will you ever have a family?"  "Three years is a really long time!".....  They go on and on and on until I feel as though I am being drawn and quartered by a medieval torturing device. 

While you don't have these thoughts, exactly, I bet some of them sound familiar.  In fact, when I try really hard to remember, I recall that I've had similar thoughts at every big decision in my life.  They sound different, but the ideas are all the same.  And hey, I've gotten this far - so why would I let these thoughts get me down now?  Now that they're out on paper, maybe they'll loose some of their power and perhaps even help someone who is battling with thoughts that are cousins.

And for me, it's focusing back to the source.  To all of those moments that have led me to this one.  And all of those moments ahead of me that will take me to exactly where I need to be, exactly when I need to be there, and with exactly whom I need to be there with.