Life Decisions

I’m at a crossroads in my life right now.

Today is the end of our major film projects, meaning that after another small project, University finishes. Three years of my life comes to end in little over three months time. Go back even further and I’ve been in education for sixteen years.

That means that sixteen years of my life have been planned out for me. I knew that in Year Two I would study Romans and in Year Six I would get the major parts in school plays. I knew that Year Nine meant exams and choosing what to specialize in and that Year Twelve meant more work but more freedom.

At the end of May this year, I know none of this stuff.

I’m still amazed to look back at just three years of University and see how much I have changed. Three years ago I was the skinny, bespectacled kid; smart but shy. I remember the complete lack of decent conversation in the first few months of life in Leeds, just because I didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to give the wrong impression.

Now I wear contacts and my face has filled out, hopefully in a good way. I can walk into a room and speak to strangers with only a little bit of trepidation. I’m socially smarter and book smarter. I’m a little more cynical, but that can only be a good thing.

I feel confident with myself and who I am. More importantly, I know who I am and that is something I didn’t know three years ago. Sure, I knew some things I liked but University changes your view on the world. It shows you different sides of arguments like drugs, politics, music and film. I experienced new things and saw different opinions and I changed my mind but just felt like I was becoming more ‘me’.

And now that ‘me’ is sitting in the early hours of the morning, typing this and thinking one question: So what now?

If I have changed so much in three years, where will I be in another three? Where will I live? What job will I have? Will I have a girlfriend? A wife? Kids?!

The whole idea still feels insane to me. I don’t feel ready and still feel like I haven’t got a clue about life. Am I always going to feel like this, that I’m making life choices without a clue to where they’re going to lead me?

Sometimes I worry that I’ve already made the wrong choice, long ago. I wonder if I really should have studied Filmmaking. The only way I reassure myself is the thought that this is the only thing I can see myself doing. Sure, I could work in an office, get in at nine and leave at five. Maybe I’d do that well. But the only thing I can see myself enjoying in the future is what I’m doing right now.

It fits me, in an odd way that it’s hard to explain with words. When I’m on a film set, I’m happy. Even if I’m making tea or holding a light to make it look like a TV is flickering, I feel all, well, I feel like I’m glowing.

When I have that script epiphany, it feels the same. I feel elated, like I’ve won first prize in something really, really important. When I write a scene, I feel the characters inside my head. They talk and they interact with each other. I’m just their medium, channeling their speech onto the page for them.

It comes naturally and easy. This is ‘me’.

So, in the end, I can only conclude that I didn’t make the wrong decision. I could have done something safer. I would be happy as a teacher or a psychiatrist. But I feel I would have always looked back on that moment three years ago and regret not taking the risk with film, not daring to enter that scary door, with its foreboding and its peeling paint..

My future is only going to get more difficult. The industry is hard to get into and it seems like everyone with a video camera thinks they can make a film. I’ve got to make sure I work harder, write better, dream bigger, get noticed more than all of them.

And when we come back to the original question (So what now?) it seems these ramblings have provided me with the answer. Exactly what I’ve been doing before; making it up as I go along.

This whole process of trying to guess my future is a pointless game in the end. I could be a millionaire in three years. I could be on the street. All I know for sure is that I’m never going to be the shy kid I was three years ago, or even the young adult I am as I type this.

I’ll have new friends, and some old ones, new experiences and new dreams. But I hope I’ll still be ‘me’. Because then, no matter what I’m doing, I’ve got nothing to worry about.

Unless I got kids. Then I’ll be worrying about them wetting the bed.

:)

PS. This long, meandering bit of prose was written at two in the morning. It may be the closest I’ll get to a stream of consciousness put straight onto the page. I’ve tried to edit it for ease of reading and to make it a bit more entertaining, but I do apologize for how self-indulgent and erratic the whole thing is.

That’s just how my mind works.

http://duckify.deviantart.com/art/Decidophobia-50390479