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The Art of Being Lost

A Game to Get You Through

By Cosette MontemayorPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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I'm going to be traveling around America for a year, experiencing theatre in a way like never before. I can't even begin to explain to you how excited I am, how thankful I am. Ugh, can you believe? *Cue Jonathan Van Ness entrance.

The last time I was auditioning, I was in New York City running around in the freezing rain with a broken heart from a few rejections. Now I'm cast in a national tour.

Talk about one door closing and another opening. What a hall.

On a real note, I thought we could get super personal, here.

I stumbled upon one of my old journals from a few years ago. I took a gap before starting college, as it felt like the right thing to do at the time. Now, having enjoyed the structure and tools that college brought me, I'm not sure if it was the perfect decision, but it is definitely one that shaped me.

Anyway, that very journal got me through the hardest of times...

And today, we are going to look at a page that really caught my attention, together. Before we begin, though, I thought I would give you a little backstory of the girl who was being saved by this journal—the person I was a few years ago.

I can't really remember her face. It feels like she was a stranger I met in passing at some point in time. I only remember her mind, how stagnant it was, how empty her heart was, and I feel the ghost pains for her every now and then.

I used to tell my friends that I felt as though my happy self had died, and that I was living in the shell of what I was trying to remember about her.

At this time, I was living in a crappy one-bedroom apartment with my dad. We didn't have a lot of money to spare and everything was completely cluttered, including my mind. I wasn't booking shows, which fed a lot of my loneliness. For so long, theatre had been my sanctuary and a quick fix to escape my own mind. I think me using it as a crutch is what started ruining my auditions. I was in a bad place, in more ways than one. High school highlighted my depression that derived from my early home life, and I would get waves of reliving the worst parts of myself and my experiences. I wondered if parts of my brain were destroyed as it was developing when I was younger and if it had taken away any sense of normalcy or comfort I could experience on my own. I still wonder about that from time to time. Throughout that gap year, I was so lonely and numb, the waves won and I didn’t see land for a very, very long time.

However, I will let you in on a little game I played to get myself through. This game slowly became the theme of my life, perspective, AND this blog page—which leads us to the page that made me start typing today.

Disclaimer: I would like to apologize for my awful handwriting. I promise it has improved. I also promise that's a lie, and it still looks awful. I'm glad we can have a platform of trust, here.

The game of being lost.

And how it's never as bad as it seems—because there's always something to find, or something to find you.

I closed this journal and decided I wanted to take what control of my life in any way I could. I was determined to focus on my health and happiness, and spent almost a year trying to perfect the system of me: what works/what doesn't; what friends, hobbies, food, environments, shows, flowers, songs, and teachers made me happy. I kept the healthy stuff close. Then one day, my entire mind had shifted, and I got back to doing what I loved. Not as a crutch, but as something I wanted to live through and have live on after me.

After a few auditions, I booked the show I am in right now. The show isn't really the point of this post, even though I am very proud of it. I am even more proud of the person I am becoming, and how hard I've worked to get here.

I'm still lost in so many ways, but it doesn't scare me. I know I have the strength to map it out.

Whoever you are, whatever journey you're on, I hope you know that being lost is a part of the process.

Trust it, and trust yourself.

xo

healing
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About the Creator

Cosette Montemayor

Actress. Let's get lost together.

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