Hi, hello, I'm back.

Hi, hello, I'm back. I've been unmotivated and deeply confused lately. Graduating school, auditioning (or attempting to), bouncing around jobs and realizing that I cannot spend my entire life working an office job (or I will hate my life forever). And through this weird, transitional time I've taken to shorter form chaos - ie my Instagram stories of questions, polls and posts about my tummy hurting (is it because of anxiety, is it something I ate, am I sick? WHO KNOWS!). BUT I'm trying to get back on here. Probably not in the same way as I imagined (or have come to expect of myself) or have done in the past - which felt way more put together and important - but maybe in a few different ways. Rambles, rants, storytelling, thoughts, I don't know. Something, anything.

I've been seeing a therapist for about 2 years now and honestly, it has made a huge difference and I'm really proud of myself and my progress. I will preach to everyone about going to therapy all the time, any time - whether you think your problems are big or small or you just want to talk to someone for some guidance and an outside perspective. I know you generally have to pay for it (I know I do, and oof), but mental health is a huge part of life and self care. I bring this up because something I have been discussing with my therapist lately is the feeling of "am I still burned out? Am I exhausted? Will this ever go away?" The last time we spoke, about a couple weeks ago, we came to the conclusion that with what I'm doing right now (work, not being in school, not having the same commitments or routine, etc) I'm under-stimulated and missing a lot of what is important to me - what I'm passionate about, what I feel like is my purpose. I had a lot of this purpose and motivation while I was in school - fighting the system, trying to change the program, doing research, having conversations with various people, all the things. I felt like I was doing something important then, or that I was on track to something that felt important and felt like "my life's purpose" (not to be so grandiose and cliché, but you know). Now, not to say I'm currently a corporate monkey... but as a liberal artist who often jokes about being homeless but making important, life changing art, this is not how I thought post-undergrad life would be for me right now (or maybe it is what I thought it would be but hoped it would be better, and hoped that I would maybe get to sing and dance and act because god knows I paid a heck of a lot of money for that singing, dancing, acting degree). Overall, I think I'm doing alright, but it's hard. A lot of the work I'm doing right now feels temporary. I have an end goal or a path I want to get to, but I'm taking these side quests first - both as experiences and out of necessity. But I find it hard seeing friends I love succeed in the main field I want to be in. It feels like I'm falling behind. Don't get me wrong - I am SO HAPPY and proud of them, but of course there is a part of me wondering "why not me? What is wrong with me?" And I think this is normal. And this is ok. It's a process, and I'm trying to trust it. I'm trying to trust that it's not my time yet. All of this doesn't change my absolute pride and joy for these friends, but more the way I see myself and my guilt. (Honestly, I've probably barely scratched the surface of this but let's not get into it tonight.)

I don't know where I was going with this, there are so many tangents and thoughts. Some things I want to say are potentially too personal to share on the internet like this but who knows, there are maybe like 3 people that will read this? But anyway, in talking to my therapist, I have come up with some potential solutions or actionable things I can do to try and fill these gaps of passion and purpose. One of them is "Getting back to my writing" - blog and musical/theatrical. Ah yes, what every writer says. But something I said in my session was: "I just need to get back into it and post whatever, create whatever. I have this rigid idea of what my writing was before and now I feel like I can't match what I had the energy to do then so I don't even bother. So maybe I need to change how I approach this and not expect what I was writing a year or two ago to be the same as now." So here we are. Expecting chaos but hoping to find something hidden (or smart or profound or important) in here. Also realizing that I still have things to say. I might have more to say since I'm technically "older" and have maybe experienced more? (I'm not totally sure about either of those because I'm convinced that I'm just a silly child who does a terrible British accent - my dad will attest to both of those things.)

(Photo: a text from my dad as I was filled with anxiety on my way to work)

As I'm writing this at 10:30pm (now about 11:30pm) on a Friday night after a not so great day, I am listening to my playlist entitled "Fighting my anxiety", and between the writing and the songs I have curated, I'm feeling a bit better. Headphones on, criss cross apple sauce on the couch, just typing away. I'm trying to re-read all I've written and it feels a bit messy and not very polished or cohesive but hey, does it need to be? I'm also thinking about the draft articles I wrote for this blog that I never posted and heck, I'll probably put them up because I spent time on them. We'll see. All this to say, I'm back. Or at least trying to be. Without expectations. Without pressure. If 3 people read this, bop, I love you all. If 10 people read this, heyyy hi, love you. If more than 10 people read this, oh heyyy - how'd you come across this? Appreciate you for real. I hope I said something kind of interesting or kind of important or something that at least made you think. Or maybe you took the 5 minutes or however long to read this and you thought "oh, Mikayla is... hmmm..." and like, hey, that's cool too (I think?). ANYWAY ANYWAY, if you know me, you know where to find me. Love y'all <3