I no longer hate Bryan-f'ing-College-Station! I don't LOVE College Station, but I no longer hate it. The last two and a half months here have made all the difference. I haven't been home since New Year's. I made the decision to stay here until my birthday and it's been hard, really hard especially in January with a three day weekend and especially when my mother started teasing Isaac about my whereabouts (not cool mama). I wanted to go home a lot in January. But I made the decision to stay here and try to figure out a life here that I could be happy with and I've definitely made a good start.
In January I auditioned for a musical, the first musical I'd auditioned for since Beauty and the Beast at SAC a hundred years ago. To say I was out of practice would be a huge understatement. So on January 27th I auditioned for Sunset Boulevard, at the community theatre in Bryan, TX (the audition process totally needs its own blog post, but because I'm putting this out there I'll get to it eventually). I got an ensemble part and spend the next month practicing pretty much daily for the show. We had a couple random days off here and there but seriously for the most part it was daily rehearsals with Sundays off. I did it to meet people, to step out of my comfort zone and to see if Bryan-College Station was actually live-able and I can say it did all those things. I met some wonderful people, people I want to keep in touch with, people I want to stay friends with and people I can see being a part of my life here. Mission accomplished! There are more than just students here and people with real jobs and people with lives away from the university! I was amazed. Anyways I could write too much about SSB and it all but I'll leave it with it was a wonderful experience and I'm so glad I did it- even if at times I was too exhausted to do shave my legs or too tired to mind that my legs and feet were covered with scratches and bruises.
The first week of February, besides being the first week of rehearsal, also marked the first non-family visitor I had up to BCS. My good Matt came and stayed with me for a long weekend and I got to show him a little bit of what my new life was like here. It was good in many ways, but the best way was that it was a friend from my SA life who wanted to see me be successful in my new life here, he wanted to meet my friends and see what I was interested in here. It was a very therapeutic visit and of course he introduced me to a new guilty pleasure in the form of Trailer Park Boys, but again that's info for another day.
February was also the time where my work life started to pick up too, things at work started to get really busy and every day something new and exciting happened. Everyday I left totally satisfied with what I had accomplished and while I frequently left tired, just to go to rehearsal to get more tired, I was still excited every day to go to work. I was so tired I even lost my voice for the first time since college, I'm blaming allergies which have finally reared their ugly head in my life, after not being present for 27 years.
The first weekend of January was opening weekend and after the first Sunday show I had to figure out what to do with myself now that rehearsals were over. Mama had come down for the weekend and we just sort of hung out at the apartment watching movies and relaxing. When she left I had 4 days of nothing to get through. I decided it was time to pick up my guitar and start playing again, my poor Taylor was very neglected the last 6 months. I made plans with one of the girls from the cast to hang out and then it was time for the next weekend of shows. On Sunday after strike I was driving home to get my dishes for the cast party and I started crying. I was so sad the show was over. I enjoyed everything about it and while I was physically glad it was over, I was not emotionally glad it was over.
It's only Tuesday now so I don't really know how things are going to be now that the shows over. But I feel really good. I feel good about my life here and feel like I've found some things to hold on to, to make it more than just bearable, but to actually enjoy myself here.
