Living in a pole barn

I have these strong moments where I realize, or remember, that I can't go home. I realized this, really really realized it when I was home for Christmas this year. My grandfather, who lives with my parents, went off about gay marriage and how it's wrong according to the Bible, and how we need to do everything the Bible says (he ignores the tassels on coats law and loves shrimp, by the way), and "those people are corrupting the sanctity of marriage." He's 85. I'm told I have to love him even if his beliefs are different from mine, especially because he's old and Catholic, but that doesn't mean I should live with him.

Despite all this my parents still want me to come home. For real come home. Find a teaching job in my small home town, come home. I love my parents, even like them, a lot. I call home every day. But I can't live there, and I have trouble admitting that to them as well. My parents have resorted to bribing, however, and I'm not sure how to deal with that.

My younger sister lives in one of the barns on our property. She's not a cow; they turned the barn into an apartment. We have 5 acres, and on that 5 acres we have 2 barns, a garage, a car port, a farm house that is now a photography studio, and a prefab home. Oh, and an outhouse. It's a bit of a commune, in a good way. Back before I realized living at home was the worst idea ever, my parents talked about putting a pole barn out back and sectioning off a corner of it for an apartment for me. yay. Excuse the lowercase y; I lack the excitement and energy needed to hold down the shift key. I told my parents that I'd never forgive myself if they put in an apartment and then I got a job somewhere else, so they shouldn't do it. My dad said something about understanding.

Yesterday I made my daily call home and told my dad that another possible job fell through because the job no longer existed. A theatre company I really love and have connections with got smart and eliminated their tour manager position by making one of the touring actors also act as the manager. My dad was appropriately sympathetic. And then I said, "Dad, it's so warm today, it's making me homesick." My hometown is approximately 30 minutes from a beach and boardwalk, the first beach and boardwalk of many. So when it gets strangely warm in January and February, I'm usually in my car on my way to the boardwalk. All day yesterday I could smell the salt air, itching to see the ocean. My dad jumped on this like a piranha. "Well, you know, you could move home in May, get a teaching job to pay the bills, work on finding a good theatre job for the future while you pay off your student loans, and then that way you can go to the beach whenever you want!" I muttered something negative about living in a pole barn, and he said "hey, that apartment would be better than what your sister's got!"

I have got to find a good job.

Panic Sets In

When I developed a love for theatre early in high school, I had this notion that I was going to grow up to be an actress. I boldly told my parents that I would be looking at theatre programs in colleges. My parents, who rarely limited me ever, boldly said, "no you're not." They politely used the phrase "starving artist", and encouraged me to look into English. Being an obedient child, I accepted their decision, and attended a small private college where I was a big fish in a small pond, but learned quickly that acting was not my strong suit.

My passion for theatre, however, did not die with my actress goals. Instead, I learned what my strong suits were when it came to theatre: teaching, especially children, stage managing, directing, managing in general, crisis management. When it was time to graduate college, I found a very unique graduate program nestled in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia that combined scholarship, which I am good at, and theatre, which I love. I thought, "ha! This is the way to stick it to my parents," and I applied. I am currently four months from graduation and the real world, with goals that will certainly lead me to what my parents fear most: a starving artist.

A year ago, I would have been fine. I would have had plenty of theatre jobs to choose from. Luckily, my strong suits in theatre make me an excellent candidate: I love making schedules, working under crisis, know how to research and write, can multitask like it's nobody's business, am not afraid of hammers and nails, can direct and/or stage manage, am highly motivated in the area of education, and am all around intelligent and easy to work with. I'm a bargain.

And then the economy went down the shitter, as they say. And now everyone is sizing down. And no one is hiring, especially not in the arts. So there goes my great plan to show my parents that I'm not just a starving artist. I will graduate in May, and, after having earned a B.A. in English, summa cum laude, and both a Master of Letters AND a Master of Fine Arts in Shakespeare in Performance, I will move home and work at McDonalds.

So today, as I sat in my Careers class learning how to properly behave in an interview should I be so lucky as to find myself in one, I began to panic. My chest closed in a little as I realized that I have nowhere to go. No inkling of guidance. Nothing. All I know is that I don't want to stay here, I don't want to go home, and I want to pay back my student loans. Oh, and if it's not too picky, I'd like to work in theatre and with kids.

So if you are reading this, I thank you. I'm merely looking for an outlet for my anxiety and fears before they build up and suffocate me. I don't do well when I have nothing. Give me twenty options, or thirty parameters and limiters, and I'll make it work. Give me nothing, and I sink. Now, where did I put those floaties.....