{"id":7705,"date":"2020-01-15T10:33:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T16:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=7705"},"modified":"2020-01-15T10:33:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T16:33:23","slug":"practically-perfect-in-every-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2020\/01\/15\/practically-perfect-in-every-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Practically perfect in every way."},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever gone swimming and you’re swimming in the shallow end of the pool, where your feet can touch the floor and you’re able to move freely without the fear of your head barely scraping over the top of the water and you go under? Have you ever had the urge to suddenly dive into the deep end? Right off of the diving board–into the deep end of the pool, where sometimes you can’t see the bottom and you have absolutely no idea how deep the water is.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes certain aspects of life can give us that feeling. Like we’re standing on the edge of the diving board, looking over at the water, contemplating our decisions and thinking about how things will end up. And it’s a scary feeling–but I promise if you go into the deep end, things can definitely change for you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And that’s how it was for me. I was living life in the shallow end of the pool. I was scared to swim outside, scared to go beyond my limitations and see what other things were being offered to me. It took someone forcing me out of the deep end, off of my comfortable float, and into the deep end (surprisingly this is actually how I learned to swim).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s be honest–there’s a lot of scary aspects of life. We have so much fear and anxiety over our lifetimes that it can hold it us back if we don’t know how to handle it correctly. And my anxiety was beginning to do that to me. I was absolutely terrified to put myself on stage and be a performer–yet I had this burning desire to be an actress. The strange thing was that I had performed the National Anthem in front of my entire school (3 times!), sang many times in church, and even played Wendy Darling in my school’s production of Peter Pan<\/em>,\u00a0<\/span>but I still couldn’t find the courage to act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The bad thing was that I wanted\u00a0<\/em>to act. No one was telling me I couldn’t do it except for me. I was telling myself that I wasn’t good enough. I wanted to go to college to study professional acting, but I had this mindset that I would never in my life be good enough for that. I even tried out once for a television acting gig and I didn’t get it, which really took me down a few notches (to be honest, I was only 11 and it ended up being a scam and A LOT of people lost their money). <\/span><\/p>\n

I even thought of a few other career choices, trying to take my mind off of acting. Education. Interior design. Journalist. But they didn’t seem like\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/strong>My parents noticed that I loved acting and told me about this musical coming up the next town over.\u00a0Mary Poppins Jr.\u00a0<\/em>They asked me if I wanted to audition, and I told them no. They kept persuading me and pestering me about it, but I kept telling them no. But in the back of my mind, this voice kept telling me “Abigail, don’t be a dummy. You\u00a0know\u00a0<\/em>you want to audition. Stupid head, audition for the freaking musical!” The voice kept getting stronger, and finally, I gave in. I told my parents I wanted to audition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The bad thing was that I had never even SEEN\u00a0Mary Poppins.\u00a0<\/em>I knew it was about this nanny, but I had no idea what the deal was. So when the time came for my audition, I was terrified. I was freaking out and I knew I would be playing the tree that swayed in the background. When my name was called to audition, I went on stage and sang “God Bless America” and then performed a cold read of\u00a0Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs\u00a0<\/em>with a few other people. I left my audition unsettled. I was uncomfortable, and I just knew I was gonna be the perfect tree in the background.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I got a callback. I was shocked, confused, and sort of happy. I would never in a million years thought I was capable of doing something like that. So my mom drove me to my callback and she waited patiently in the car while I was told to sing high notes I never even knew I could hit. I had to act and sing all over again, but this time I had to act out a lead role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once again, I left unsettled. This time though, I was thinking I was gonna get the role bigger than the tree maybe. Then on the way home, the director texted me and my mom. He said words I’ll never forget. <\/span><\/p>\n

Congratulations, I think you’re going to make a wonderful Mary Poppins!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was crying. I was so shocked I had no idea what to say or do. It was the biggest role I had to play yet, and I never even been to this theatre before!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I met some amazing people during the run of the show. One would become one of my best friends, and he encouraged me to come to MSA with him. We make a pretty inseparable pair now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If I wouldn’t have dove right in to the deep end, there’s no way I would have done that musical or even considered MSA. I’m so thankful and so proud to be here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I encourage you to dive into the deep end too. You never know what may come of it. <\/span><\/p>\n

xo, Abigail<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever gone swimming and you’re swimming in the shallow end of the pool, where your feet can touch the floor and you’re able to move freely without the fear of your head barely scraping over the top of the water and you go under? Have you ever had the urge to suddenly dive … Continue reading “Practically perfect in every way.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7705"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7851,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7705\/revisions\/7851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}