Once.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who wanted nothing more than to scare all the boys on the playground.

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who wanted nothing more than to get a college scholarship.

Once upon a time, there was a young lady who wanted nothing more than to be a theatre teacher.

Once, there was a young woman who wanted nothing more than to change the world.

It's funny how life sneaks up on you. My entire life I've been incredibly sure of myself, what I wanted, and how to get there. It seems like every step along the way I got what I wanted, and I grew.

Until.

Yes, that utterly life changing moment when you realized that what you got, what you thought you wanted, really doesn't make you happy at all. And then you do a nose dive, Wile Coyote style, and a little atomic cloud of dust blooms upward-- signaling the bomb that just went off in your consciousness.

All my sense of purpose seems to be lost. I know it's there, but I can't find it. I can't reach it, and I sure as hell can't see it clearly enough to know what it is.

All I know is that once I was sure what I wanted, and that certainty gave me the determination to get through every hardship that came my way. Every traffic ticket that had to come from grocery money, every bad night at the restaurant that meant no rent money, every overdraft fee-- it was all tempered by the drive to get where I was going.

But without a destination in sight, now I'm really not sure what keeps me going. I feel like I'm wandering around blind, clinging to the only thing I know (the theatre) hoping that someone delivers me from my exile, or that god willing, I deliver myself.

It's rather exhausting.