journal continuation

Even though the One Acts class is over, I will still continue to update this journal periodically since I am taking Drama Honors (English) and Playwriting, so my experiences with the theatre are not quite over. I hope to continue being involved in some form of theatre for the rest of my life, even if it’s not professionally. I do have a little bit of a passion for theatre even though I’m still trying to figure out whether my motives are “pure.” If you haven’t noticed I am a little bit insecure and I have a little bit of an inferiority complex. I feel beneath people a lot of times, so I feel that in order to compensate for my inferiority I need to try and work ten times harder and do ten times better than anyone else. And I’m a little worried that I want to be involved with theatre solely because I want to prove to myself and to others that I can act, that I can be involved in theatre. Don’t get me wrong, I have always liked acting, but I \usually only acted when I took a course at school or when we did dramatic readings in some English classes. The reason motive is so important is because I want to enjoy acting, I want to enjoy the whole theatre experience without worrying about whether or not I am good enough. I don’t want to be afraid to go out for auditions because I feel that I am not good enough. I don’t want to just always be a member of the audience. But this lack of self-esteem hurts a lot. It hurts to always see another person and feel inferior to them. It hurts to always want to hide into the background and disappear. And it hurts that a lot of people think that it’s easy to get over self-esteem issues. Please, if only things in life were that simple. You can’t just get over self-esteem issues by thinking positively, contrary to what others say, there are other underlying issues that need to be considered and resolved in conjunction with the self-esteem issues.
Even now, I feel a need to justify my feelings for an invisible audience. Worrying that others will see me as nothing more then a nervous, cry baby, selfish girl. But then again, this is my journal and this really is one of the only places that I can turn to where I can express myself freely. I don’t need to hide behind a mask and hide my pain. Adults tell us teens and young adults that as we become older we will (hopefully) become less self absorbed and that’s a great and necessary thing. But I also feel as if older adults are advocating repressing our emotions and problems. Obviously we can’t go around expressing all our feelings all the time. We can’t not stop going to school just because we don’t want to. (Well we can, it’s just not advisable) and we do need to move outside of our convenient little boxes, but we can’t hide nor should we have to all the time. I know I am wandering but I need to get this off my chest. One of my teachers has a favorite saying that he got from his first boss and the saying runs along the lines that “if you don’t have a good attitude about something, pretend you do.” The quote does make sense to a point. A person can hate going to school but they shouldn’t fester on their hatred all the time or they will only make themselves and others more miserable. Yet the quote can also be taken to advocate phoniness. Lying, hiding who we are and how we feel. It’s just stupid most of the time.
I bring this subject up because of my drama honors class today. It was the first day and I saw all these incredibly academically smart people enter the room and I felt so self conscious. And of course I said something and my teacher completely shut it down and dismissed what I had to say. I feel like I’m trapped in a room with people in another league. Like I’m the poor peasant who has been allowed to partake of a rich person’s feast. The peasant stands around feeling self-conscious about their stench and raggedy close. In the long run grades aren’t important, how well you do in high school is not going to matter in the end, but its hard to be in environment where it’s basically you have to do good in school or you will fail at life. Drama honors seems like it will shape up to be one of the classes where I feel truly alone. I feel alone a lot of the time actually and I know probably everyone or almost everyone at my school feels the same way but unlike everyone else I can’t distract myself from my loneliness. I can’t try and run away from it since I don’t really hang out with anyone outside of school. But I can’t let that get me down. I need to pray to to God and work through all my issues of loneliness and depression. I won’t let the fact that all the other students have been in like a billion AP classes keep me from taking something from this class. I won’t let the actions of my teacher get me down. I can learn so much from this course and damn it I will learn something.