It doesn’t seem quite real that my journey would start right now. I always thought my journey began when I graduated from high school and started college. And then I thought the even difficult journey would begin after that! High school prepared you for college and college prepared you for the real world. Isn’t that what we were always taught? And that’s when I always felt reality would start for me, when adulting would finally take over. And for several years it did. When I graduated from high school I was excited to leave that world behind and reinvent myself in college. I could start over with new friends, a new identity and a new personality. College prepared me for the life I thought I wanted and so I decided to go to graduate school and get a Masters in College Student Affairs. I found my calling. After I completed my studies, I finally began my career as a Student Affairs Professional. I was finally doing something I loved and had a passion for. But I soon realized during the next few years that that passion would start to wane. I would start to have disillusionment. In fact, one might say I was starting to lose my passion, love and excitement for Student Affairs. After nearly 7 years, I was let go from my job. It was a huge blow to my ego. It also had me rethink everything that I had done over the past few years. I would start to go on job interviews to little success and each failure to get hired or score an interview led me to believe I was a failure. I questioned my journey. I spent the next few months doing something I never did before and that was take care of myself. I learned to be happy and focus on me for a change. I went back to school and got a second Masters degree, this time in Counseling Psychology, Marriage and Family Therapy. One of the greatest joys I got out of being a Student Affairs Professional was the one on one conversations I had with students. I loved seeing them as incoming freshman and helping with their growth into becoming adults in the four years they were in college. The talks and conversations were wonderful and I realized that was something I wanted to do for the next portion of my journey. This time I would engage in conversations with a larger population and work with children, adolescents and even couples and families. After I graduated I began the journey to become a Marriage and Family Therapist. I worked with children and adolescents, college students and couples. I was happy, or so I thought. As the years went buy, that disillusionment once again started to sink in. After I graduated I went on more interviews to work with agencies and groups. I sat in those interviews not really feeling happy to get the job. It felt like I only wanted the job so I can work instead of wanting the job because it would make me also happy and satisfied with life. Maybe that’s why I failed at the job search. I ended up taking a job working at same University that let me go but this time as the campus Associate Marriage and Family Therapist.
Before I continue on, let me take a moment to talk about the parallel journey I began to take.
When I started college, I had a desire to be an actor. I wanted to do musical theater. I was never really encouraged by my family to do it (but I wasn’t necessarily discouraged either). They supported my performances in high school and even supported my first big musical I got cast in my freshman year. I went from ensemble to finally have lines in a show! Somehow I once again got disillusioned by theater (that happens quite a lot to me if you haven’t figure that out) and stopped performing. It wasn’t until 15 years later when I auditioned for a community theater production of Into the Woods that finally got me into performing once again. I started doing more productions around San Diego and I even began directing musicals for youth theater productions and began acting classes for children and adolescents. I thought my passion for theater had been reignited and I was happy. I was doing theater and doing counseling therapy.
As you can see, my life was full of lots of peaks and valleys. But how does this all lead to this blog?
You guessed it, disillusionment once again sank in. I enjoyed theater and I enjoyed counseling but it never truly made me fully happy. Was this something that I could do for the rest of my life and never feel like I would get tired of it, or that it would bring down my spirits. We all go through these phases in our life and I felt this was just another one of those phases. The problem is that I’ve had so many of these phases the past several years. I was starting a new journey in life only to stop and start all over again. It was a dizzying part of my life that I didn’t want anymore. I had to once again take a look at my life. I needed to take a step back and refocus and really take the time to look at what was missing and what was needed. The answer to that had always been in my face all these years, I just always used it as an excuse rather than a force to create positive change in my life.
I am independent.
This led me to realize that I needed to be independent in my career and my passions. I love doing theater but I always was happier when I was directing shows and teaching students. When it came to my work as a student affairs professional and counselor, I was always independent and felt more invigorated in my work when I was able to work on my own. To be perfectly clear, I am and have always been a team player. I enjoy working on teams. I enjoy having employees and colleagues. I enjoy being in an ensemble of several people. I will never turn down the opportunity to be a part of a team or a group. But when I looked at myself I realized that in order for me to succeed, in order for me to be truly happy, I had to do what was best for me. I had to once again begin a new journey.
