Unjustified

So many people are so stressed out about so many different things. My stress does not come from schoolwork. It does not come from too much on my plate. No, it comes solely and completely from myself and my inability to give up on the things that I love. I wish I had too much on my plate. I wish I was stressed about something that I had to do and work really hard on but at the end of the day was really, really proud of. But I'm not. Because, you see, aside from writing, anything else I like I never get to work on.

Okay, enough skirting around the point. I wasn't going to write about this. It's self-created drama with myself (okay, that was redundant) and the whole world doesn't need to hear about it. But then again, it's been bothering me all night. I mean, I'm not doing my schoolwork, I'm just kind of hanging out in my room not doing particularly anything at all. I even went down to the C-Store thinking that maybe I was hungry, spent about fifteen minutes meandering around in there, and then left without getting something because I suddenly realized I wasn't hungry, after all.

This is going to sound stupid. It's going to sound completely absurd and like I'm turning something trivial into a big deal. It's just, well.

I don't know how to write about this without coming off like a complete prat. But it just makes me so sad...so very, very sad that I, well, I don't make any appearance in the school play. I mean, none. I have a tiny part as it is, but not only is it small - it's said from backstage. As in - I do not actually step foot on the actual stage.

Well, not technically true. We're doing Little Shop of Horrors. I get to be inside the plant making it move around and stuff. I know, I know, it sounds really cool. And, to be honest, I'm excited about doing it. But I'm not, you know, the voice of the plant. I mean, my mother's going to come to this show and not even see me. I don't have to do any acting at all. Even my speaking part has very little acting. I'm a radio interviewer, for crying out loud. I have about five lines that don't say very much and they're said from backstage. Anyone could do it.

I don't want to whine, I don't want to complain, I'm not fighting this. I don't know why I'm not just quitting, but maybe it's because I really do want to work inside the plant. Maybe it's because I can't turn my back on theater, I love it so much. But I just feel...I don't know. Jipped. I mean, I always feel this way. I always get the really, really, really cruddy parts in plays. Maybe I think I'm a better actress than I actually am. I don't know. But it bothers me. I mean, why would God give me such passion for acting and for the theater, if He then doesn't let me actually do anything with it? Does anyone understand how incredibly frustrating it is to watch everyone else work so hard on their parts and complain and stress and complain and stress and then be really, really happy at the end and do a wonderful job and get congratulated...and you can't? And you're not a part of that?

Oh, yes, sure. Everyone is crucial to the play, etc. etc. etc. But I can't help but believe that most of that speech is pity talk. Even if they need someone to do the plant, even if they need someone to be the radio announcer, they don't need me to do it. Anyone could. Who am I in this production? Who am I in any production I've ever been in?

Nobody.

When it comes to plays, I just feel like I'm such a nobody. I keep trying to tell myself it's not important, it's not what matters, it's just a stupid play, but it's not. I love it, I have such passion for it. In every play I've been in, I always know everyone's lines by heart, even before they do! I act it out in front of my mirror, wishing, just wishing I could play a real character, someone with personality, someone who has something to say, something real to say.

I just wish someone would give me that chance - even just once.

And what's harder - when you have a tiny part, you're never justified for anything. There's no reason you shouldn't know your lines perfectly, there's no reason you should feel stressed out, there's no reason anyone should cater anything to your schedule because, come on, how much are you really being asked to do?

And people can snap at you because they're so stressed with their big parts, their important roles, their roles where their parents can actually be proud of them for accomplishing something and where people can be impressed by them and where they can feel proud of themselves. And where they can actually have fun. And where they're at every practice and get every single private joke. And you get so overlooked. You don't even know whether you're really included when people talk about "the cast." And people are rude to you when it gets close to the show - the other actors, I mean - and they don't notice it, nor do they mean it, but they're just so stressed and there's such high tension - but for you there's not. For you, you feel it when you get snapped at, when other's take out their high stress level on you, but you're expected to excuse it. And you do excuse it, of course. But it still hurts you. And these people are your friends, normally.

And all this, I know this is all going to happen. It happens every time. That's just the way theater is. I guess all I'm saying is, it's hard to be the small guy. And nothing about it is ever justified.

Passion For A Talent And Actually Having That Talent: The Same Or Not?

Frustration. It consumes me all over. I just wish, wish, wish that I could succeed at everything I love to do. Whether it be writing, acting, playing hockey...anything! Whenever I try, I seem to come so close and then it's whisked away, out of my reach.

Hockey:
I love hockey. I love playing it, I love watching it, I love ice skating, I love running, I love everything about it. But do I ever get to play? No. Of course not. I'm a Jewish girl. If my school doesn't have a hockey team, I'm out of luck. I can't play in a secular league like my brothers can. In high school, I started hockey intramural teams with a couple of people since we tried starting a league - and the league actually got started! But then my school wouldn't join - yes, the school who helped pioneer this league - because some of the coaches would be men. Admittedly, I wouldn't have felt comfortable playing hockey in front of a male coach even if we had joined, but still. It's the concept. The fact that a Jewish girls high school hockey league was started partly due to my high school inquiring about it and then we didn't even get to join. So now I get to watch my brothers play and they all totally forgot that I enjoy it too. At games they ask, "do you know what that penalty was? It's called crosschecking." They think I don't know how to play. They think, because I'm a girl, that I don't really care about it, either. Well, true, I'm not all obsessed with the stats of the season, but I do enjoy watching and I wish I could play.

Acting:
My God, I've loved acting ever since I knew how to play pretend. I mean, people may not think of that as acting, but that is what it is, really. Kids getting together and pretending to be people they aren't and acting out scenarios. House. That's acting. All imagination games are a form of acting. I think my love of acting and my love of stories go hand in hand. I love stories, I love telling stories, I love writing stories, I love acting out stories. So in day camp when some people put on Beauty and the Beast, I was entranced. Then in school we started putting on class plays. There was the siddur play and the chumash play which I remember having to say lines in Hebrew that I didn't even understand. I think that happens to all kids. But then in third grade, we put on a real play. Well, not really a real, real one, but a made up one suitable for third graders. It was actually really, really, really corny, about a girl who is a new student and the kids aren't nice to her, so she stays home from school and these people, like, Mrs. Tzeddaka, Mr. Chessed, and Mrs. Middot or something come and teach them how to be nice, then the new girl comes back the next day and everyone's friends. Yay! I wanted so badly to have an actual character, but no. I got to be narrator. Well, fine. I was eight years old at the time. All the parts were really small anyway, even the real ones, except the new girl, probably.

In fifth grade, we put on this mix of Broadway scenes and songs. Luckily, I had a small part in that. I almost didn't, until the play lady (who no one really liked) remembered she forgot to cast a duet part (oddly, since it was really just one character, but they decided they wanted it to be a duet). So I got to be Liat from South Pacific (which I've still never seen) along with an Israeli girl and we sang "Happy Talk" while doing these really weird hand motions. I also got to be a kid from The King And I because I was short and little.

That was the end of my real acting experience. In sleep away camp, the oldest main campus division always put on a play in August. When I was in the youngest division, they put on Annie and I got really antsy and couldn't wait until four years later when I'd get to be in the play. Every summer I'd look forward to it, until the year I was going to be in the oldest division. I can't even really complain about this. My parents decided to take us all to Israel in August, so I was there for the first month, but not for the play month. So after years of anticipation and waiting, I didn't get to be in it after all.

In high school in ninth grade, I tried out for Drama in the school production. Okay, you have to understand, everyone makes the school production. Everyone. Well, everyone, that is, except me. I must be wearing a sign on my forehead that says, "don't let me in your play" because it's still unfathomable to me why I didn't make it. Am I that awful of an actress?

In eleventh grade, the juniors and seniors actually put on a real play. We did "Witness for the Prosecution" by Agatha Christie. I made the play, somehow, but I had the smallest part. Oh, I had a ton of stage time. Probably the most stage time out of everyone. Except my entire part was to just sit on a stool and occasionally announce a witness or something. I was the court officer. That's not even a real character! It involved no acting whatsoever. Just sitting there with no expression and trying desperately not to laugh when the audience did. I couldn't even involve myself in acting so that I wouldn't laugh. I mean, I was just sitting there for two hours!

Then of course, there was this year, where I wasn't really in the play except for a line or two from the audience.

Writing:
I remember the day I decided I wanted to be an author. I was in the younger grades of elementary school and I was thinking about how I loved making up stories but that I couldn't grow up and be a storyteller because that's not a real job. I also wanted to be the person who made up movies (which is a real job, but at that young age, I didn't know that. I thought the actors just did it themselves, like when I played imagination games with my friends). So then I realized, if I couldn't tell stories, I could at least write them and make books. So I resolved to be an author when I grew up. From then on, I wrote all these random stories. Some are actually embarrassing, but hey, I was young.

Everyone came to accept the fact that I was a writer. It became part of my identity. The problem was that as I got older, it was sort of expected that I would do well in English class. And I did. I definitely did. But when I took AP English Comp., well, let's just say I did embarrassingly poorly on the AP. So much so that I would avoid the teacher the next year whenever I saw her in the halls. In twelfth grade AP English Lit., however, I did very well in class and decently on the AP. So I figured the year before was just a fluke.

My first semester at Stern, I took English Comp. (of course, since I did so atrociously on the AP and didn't get credit for it). I got all A's. The teacher really liked my writing and it boosted my confidence a lot. I thought, "I can do this! Piece of cake!" Of course, I also didn't really feel like I was learning anything. I'm not so sure that class was for me. In any case, I thought I was a good writer and was quite content with that.

Last semester, I took an English class where I didn't do so hotly on the paper. The teacher told me it sounded like I was writing to a hostile audience. The only explanations I can give for why that might be is because A. I had just had a fight with someone right beforehand about, of all things, Beowulf (Grendel, to be specific) and I think I was extremely protective of my own ideas and thoughts after that, and just very defensive in general. B. I had been told at least once or twice before that my writing sounded too wishy-washy, like I wasn't confident with what I was saying. I guess I, er, took it too far to the other extreme. Apparently. But anyway, even that was okay because afterwards, a lot of people told me that particular teacher is a hard grader, so that was alright then. I wasn't the only one in that boat.

Today I got back two papers from a teacher who really likes me a lot and who I like a lot and in whose classes I have been doing extremely well. But on the papers, though I didn't do horrendously, I didn't do as well as I'd have liked and, what hit me more than the grade was the fact that she didn't think my writing was good. She said it was weak and not developed. She asked me who I had for comp. and when I told her, she said, "well, you got something out of that class but not enough." But I wanted to insist, No, darn it, I didn't get anything out of that class and I was getting all A's! So how could I get this grade now and be told my writing is weak and my arguments undeveloped? Why is my writing not consistent? Or, more importantly, why can I not do excellently the majority of the time on English papers? Why, why, why??? I love to write, it is my passion, it is what I'm identified with. It's what I thought I was good at. Sure, creative writing and paper writing are two different things. But I always thought I was good at writing papers, too.

Why is it that whenever I fall in love with a talent or an activity, I can do average, I can do okay, but I can't do well? I can't enjoy it, sometimes I can't even get the chance to properly do it, and I can't feel pride in it.

It makes me wonder just what I am good at at all. I know this post is sort of whiny, but bear with me. It's written out of pure frustration. I almost wanted to cry when I got back to my room after getting back my papers today. No one has ever told me my writing was weak before. That I need better choice of diction. What is wrong with me?