Out with the old, in with the new

New Year’s Eve. I never thought it would come this quickly. I’m sitting in the Cleveland Airport right now, dignity intact this time (I wasn’t the “random selection” in the searching process, thank God. My pride can only take so much), and I’m marveling at how things in my life have suddenly changed. Relationships, classes, residency, family…me. I swear, my freshmen year college self wouldn’t recognize me now at all. I’m older, that’s for sure. Wiser? Getting there. And yet, there’s a childlike worry of the year that follows. Last night when I totally should’ve been sleeping, Divya and I had our classic “last night of the trip” talk fest and covered every single base we hadn’t gotten to in the past six days. Talking about the future made my insides swirl around because the future really isn’t that certain. But my future at Meredith College is coming to an end. After 2010 comes 2011 and along with that year comes college graduation. While I feel like I’m older and a little more street-and-people-savvy, the ideas of what I want to do are still not fully pieced together. It scares me. And just as I was getting into the place of panic where my breath was catching and my stomach was tightening, a sudden thought ran through my mind: Live in the moment.

Living in the moment is something that the ladies in my acting class are always lectured on. You want your scene to work? Live in the moment. Do you want an honest reaction out of your partner onstage? Live in the moment. We’ve learned that sometimes truth isn’t planned, that it just shows up spontaneously in your face when you least expect it onstage. Lying in that sleeping bag last night, I thought about how it not only just pertains to acting but to life as well-offstage. It’s good to be prepared, but preparedness can only take you so far sometimes. The choices you have to make aren’t scheduled into your daily planner; at times they just show up at the most unexpected time. And that even though I have only three semesters of college left, some of the life choices I still have to make haven’t reared their heads yet. But that’s okay, and instead of panicking, I should just see and really just enjoy what I do have in the present moment-which is actually quite a lot.

So tonight, while you're celebrating the newness of 2010, take in what's around you in that moment. Be safe, sip on yo' drank (keep it classy), and have a blast, everyone! Bring on that new decade!