Yesterday I turned 20, like I said I would in the previous post, and this is what greeted me upon my waking.

“Hi there!

So here is the deal. I think you’re awesome and have tried really hard to figure out a way to work with you this season. That’s why I asked for more videos etc. Thing is, because of all the other moving parts and pieces, I haven’t found a way to use you in this summers shows. This is ZERO reflection on how great I think you are (hopefully as demonstrated by how hard I tried to make it work). I really hope you keep in touch and that we get to work together in the future. Best of luck on your job search.”

I’m not sharing this email to showcase compliments I was given, but rather, to clarify a strange and complicated feeling.

I had been in correspondence with this gentleman regarding this job for a little over a week, and things were looking promising. However, I still kept my head out of the clouds reminding myself that in theater casting is completely out of my control and nine times out of a ten I will receive a no.

As I woke up to this email on my birthday, I wasn’t sure what the appropriate reaction was. I glanced over at the kind words and felt so grateful to have been turned down in such an uplifting way. Then I immediately shifted to I’m-totally-fine-I’m-strong-it-doesn’t-matter-to-me-at-all mode.

The truth is, I lost out on a job, and that sucks. But I didn’t allow myself to think that at all because I had to be okay! It was my birthday and today HAD to be perfect.

Turns out, not all birthdays are perfect. Not all days are perfect, and that okay. Now, this wasn’t at all a reflection of the people in my life, they did everything they could to make my day as perfect as it could be. External forces ended up getting the best of me, though. I had class from 9-5:30 that day, which included three midterms, (one of which was for my least favorite teacher ever who made me cry but still gave me an A), no time to eat dinner, rehearsal till ten (where I tried to scarf down a fourth of a bag of sour patch kids), and I had started my period the day before so I was a little emotional and bloated. I felt so sad and on the verge of tears the entire day, but somehow I was okay. This was the biggest oxymoron I’ve ever been faced with.

Later that day I called my dad and as soon as he asked me how my day was, the floodgates opened. I talked at him for about eight minutes, and then my phone died and hung up on him. As soon as I called him back I talked at him a little longer until he managed to stop me when I finally paused for a breath. He said, “Let me talk.”

He ignored everything about the midterms and asshole teacher and sour patch dinner and said, “You’re upset about the job.”

I quickly refuted his statement saying, “No, of course not, I’m fine, it’s not a big deal.”

But he stopped me again and said I needed to acknowledge and accept my feelings. Bottling them up all day is what set me on edge and kept me there for the rest of the day.

How could I not bottle up my feelings though? Yes I was upset about not getting the job, but I felt so selfish for being upset. Here I have a director wanting so badly to cast me and went out of his way to tell me how much he liked me. Here I made it farther than most people do with auditions, farther than I did last year. Here I had proof that I am worthy of being cast and valuable enough to fight for, so how do I have any right to be sad?

What my dad made me realize was two fold:

1-    Be kind to your feelings. I always thought this and I always say this to other people, but like I’ve said, taking your own advice seems to be the hardest thing to do. EVER. My dad reminded me that I need to feel my feelings, that I need to let myself be a little pissed off and cry a little about it, but it couldn’t extend longer than 24 hours because then it just becomes sulking and self-pity. Too often we are told how we are supposed to feel and when we’re supposed to have our feelings. When in reality, our feelings don’t care one bit when and how they come out, they just want to be felt.

2-    We’re allowed to be happy and sad at the same time, and often that is the case. In January I got to work with the great Andrew Lippa for a couple of days on a performance. He had many life lessons to talk to us about, and what he had to say was gold. He really impressed upon us how important it was for us to understand that we can be both happy and sad at the same time, and how healthy that can be. These emotions go hand in hand, and they’re neither better nor worse than one another. They are simply emotions that demand to be acknowledges.

Here I had the most perfect example of both of these lessons, and I finally let them sink in. I cried in the Kroger parking lot about the job and then reflected on how lucky I was. I have the most amazing people in my life, I have experienced some incredible things, and this was the first birthday I ever felt a little sad. Every year I get a bit nostalgic about getting older, but I have never had a reason to feel truly sad on my birthday, not even this birthday. I am more than thankful for that.

When all is said and done, listening to my parents is the best thing I could ever do for myself. They know what they’re talking about. I’m a lucky girl.