If you know me, I've always been extremely Type A: organized, self-disciplined, and meticulous. It’s just the way I am. Growing up, I had a career path pretty much set in stone (by myself) from an extremely young age. I wanted to be a teacher. Not a ballerina or a Disney princess or a famous singer. I wanted to be a teacher. In 5th grade, I signed up for a Helping Hands program, which designated older students to help teachers with younger grades. I'd always loved playing with the plethora of younger cousins on my Dad’s side (I’m the oldest) and was beyond ecstatic when I was selected for the program. As I got older, I helped with Vacation Bible School at my church every summer, going so far as to organize the kid’s name tags in alphabetical order before everyone arrived. (I mentioned that I'm type A, right?) I liked having a plan. My senior year of high school, I worked at an elementary after-school program and just LOVED it. I was so blessed everyday, and was dead-set on pursuing an Early Childhood Education degree at my dream college, Oklahoma City University.

The other large part of my life in high school was being involved in choir and theatre. My favorite production of the year was definitely performing in the annual spring musical. My fine arts family got me through some of the toughest times of my life, and just the general angst of being high-school age. I have the deepest admiration and respect for my amazing high school theatre teacher and my two awesome choir directors. Senior year was an emotional roller coaster of so many "lasts", which had everything to do with the arts being such a huge part of my life.

When I got to college, I knew it was time to put my life plan into action and become a Kindergarten teacher. I largely put the arts aside to focus on my education classes. I told myself there would be plenty of opportunities once the “newness” of college settled down. Many of my friends are theatre majors, and once we got into the season of everyone having rehearsals for various shows, I had so much free time I really wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I felt largely incomplete without theatre in my life. And it was lonely. I was disappointed in myself for feeling this way because theatre wasn’t written in as part of said plan. I thought it was a high school hobby that I'd miss, but get over eventually… but I hadn’t. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to do; I joined a women’s fraternity as well as several other clubs and made the most out of work-study. But eventually, I found distracting myself wasn’t a solution to this feeling.

I wrestled with getting to diverge from my very specific, well-thought-out plan for a long time. I always said that as a teacher, I was going to incorporate the arts into my lesson plan as much as possible due to the rapidly increasing amount of schools that have had to cut their arts programs in recent years due to budget cuts. But I then realized the truth I'd been avoiding all along: which is that, for me, that isn’t going to be enough. I’ve realized I need the arts in my life, directly in my life, in order to be happy. I’ve realized that the previous was simply a sheepish excuse to not just dive all in and go for it.

Changing my major entailed auditioning for the Oklahoma City University School of Theatre, who's students and faculty continually blew my mind with their awesomeness. I was intimated. Auditioning was my one shot for fate to tell me who I'm meant to be. I picked pieces I loved. I wore an outfit I felt confidant in. And I gave it all I had. The time it took for me to receive my audition results was agonizing. To tell you the truth, I spent those days preparing myself for them to say "No". I over analyzed every part of how my audition went in vivid detail in my mind. I overthought and overthought until my over thinker was sore.... until I got an e-mail. I. Got. In.

So the story ends like this, this Girl With The Plan is changing her plan. And that's perfectly okay….I’m now pursuing secondary theatre education.

I want to give people an outlet to shine. I want to make people experience and appreciate the beauty of storytelling and the creative process. I want to make people “believe”, as my high school theatre teacher would always tell say.

So if you’ve got a plan like me, great! That is fantastic! Just don’t be afraid to change. Be open to a transformative YOU.