A letter from Mar 6th, 2022

Dear FutureMe, Happy 25th Birthday! Sitting here now (03/6/2022) this date seems so far away and almost impossible. It's currently 8:15pm and I'm sitting at my desk in my room at our Swanson apartment. Everyone else is in their room doing homework, and just a few hours ago I was at rehearsal for "39 Steps". This is the "first" mainstage show here at Augie that I'm Assistant Lighting and Assistant Technical Directing for. It's been amazing so far this year once I stepped back into the theater department and decided that I was going to be super involved again and really pursue theater as a career. There's been a few bumps in the road, some bigger than others. But I feel like I've built a solid support system for myself. Every time I feel like I'm about to step off some sort of cliff I turn around and see the people that I have here on campus. People like Shelley and Mike who I can call my mentors, and even Sammy. Along with my friends (waffle gang) and the underclassmen in the scene shop who have started to look up to me. And it's crazy to think that they look up to me, me of all people? I try to block out the voice in the back of my head that fights it way to the front and at this point sounds so much like Kathi and just repeats what she told me not so long ago that "You will never make it in the theater industry if you pursue it." And some days it screams at me until the red spots under my eyes are more noticeable than other days. It's a long process but I hope that her voice isn't there anymore. I hope that at the point that I'm reading this there are some things that feel a little bit easier, but I know that at this point it can be heard to tell. But if my life is still on the course that I am currently looking at then here are some of the things that I hope are going on as you read this. 1. I am still physically transitioning. That means that at this point (4 years in the future as I write this) I am almost 5+ years on testosterone. As I near my 2nd year on testosterone in May, my outsides are starting to match the insides more and more each day. I have facial hair that I don't have to hide each time I go home. I'm out to my family, my voice is deeper and doesn't crack so easily, I feel like I pass in my day to day life more easily. 2. I've had top surgery (??) my goal right now is that top surgery will be a present to myself when I graduate from Undergrad and that I will be able to go into graduate school and not have that be a road block for myself anymore. 3. I'm actively pursuing graduate school, have gone, or atleast have made a decision on that front. Currently, as I sit here, I'm not sure what I want to do. It's on my mind, it's something that I am working towards but I don't know if its the best choice right now and if I'll go straight from undergrad to graduate school. 4. That I am still involved in the things that I love, like theater. My real hope, is that it is my career and that it is what I am doing each day. And that it is still my source of joy each day. But I know that even if its not my day to day job, that it doesn't mean I failed. It doesn't mean she was right in any sense. And that's something I'm working on internalizing. But that I'm still doing it, even if its on a smaller scale. 5. I'm kinder to myself. That I don't beat myself up every night when I stare at the ceiling and try to fall asleep. That I let myself believe the compliments that I'm given, and that I'm allowed to have at least some drop of confidence in the things that I do. 6. And that I let people love me and believe them when they say they care about me, and that they aren't going to hurt me. Because not everyone is out to get me. I don't know how much insight I can give into the past (well my present) right now. Because right now, it's been kind of a rough patch since February, not gonna lie. I've had a high level of anxiety, a lot of doubt in myself, and a lot of questions about myself and a lot of the things I do. But sometimes i'm hopeful. As the song by the Mountain Goats says "I'm gonna make it through this year, even if it ***** me." https://open.spotify.com/track/0s9aeZriwqyBYfxFzsd20R?si=777a7edf6063429b