Teaching Drama to young people was fulfilling for me. It was tiring, but fulfilling, and luckily, I was pretty good at it too.
During that time, I also landed my first ever paid gig as an actor. And as the school year continued, and as I went further and further through my final two semesters of my acting course, my love, passion, and drive for acting only grew. I had a sudden realization that I could actually be an actor- make it my career. After more work over the summer, and another gig at the beginning of my fifth year of university, the possibility became more and more real.
I was still continuing to train as a teacher, though. There were only 8 months left of my time at post-secondary, and I was perfectly on track to graduate with a BFA in Drama, a BEd in Secondary Education with a specialization in Drama, and certification to officially teach in the Alberta school system. My plan, as it had been for the 5 whole years previous, was to start teaching after university and find ways to continue acting on the side.
I was set.
And then, in November of 2021, halfway through my second-to-last practicum as a student teacher, I had a panic attack during lunch hour at the school I was teaching at, and everything felt like it collapsed from there.
The attack came from no identifiable trigger, and the next week of continuing to teach my classes while simultaneously dealing with the sudden feeling of dreading going into school to teach every morning was exhausting, confusing, and extremely unsustainable.
Several talks with my partner teacher, my supervisor, different counselors, as well as my mom, my partner, and my friends eventually led me to make the decision to take a temporary leave of absence from school. I had initially intended to return the next year to finish my degree from where I left off, but after a lot of thinking and tossing and turning and introspection and journalling, and after more talks with other people, and after conferring again with my partner and friends, and after my mom caught me crying in my bedroom one morning; I decided to shelve my Education degree as a whole until further notice. I would graduate in spring of 2022 with just a BFA in Drama instead.
It was an odd feeling, living so many years of my life knowing exactly where I was going and exactly when I was going to get to my destination, and then having all of that certainty thrown out the window in what seemed like the blink of an eye. What was next now? What would I do after I graduated? Was this the right decision? It was frightening, really, being so unsure of myself.
But there was also something else- a relief to have the weight of the decision off of my shoulders, and a sparkle of excitement to be able to really pursue the path of being an actor. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the best decision I could have ever made.
Taking the rest of 2021 off, 2022 started with rehearsals for a mainstage show at the university. After feeling like I had been distanced from my love for acting while I was pursuing my Education degree, being in this show was like a breath of fresh air and a very necessary change of pace for myself. The rest of the semester whizzed by, and I ended off my time at post-secondary with my final show as a student before quickly finding myself thrown into the new experiences of an emerging actor. I landed another paid acting gig with Lunchbox Theatre, and another with Alberta Theatre Projects. I submitted for my first auditions, went in to audition for several of them, and was quickly encompassed into my first professional production in the summer with Theatre Calgary’s Shakespeare by the Bow program. During the middle of the run, I received the news that I was also cast for The Importance of Being Earnest, to be performed at Theatre Calgary that fall. I was in conversations for my internship with Quest Theatre (which I am currently doing right now!), I wrote my first grants, and I very quickly began to realize that I was now on a new path:
