How Fickle My Heart and How Woozy My Eyes

This is a blog post I meant to write about a couple weeks ago...at the peak of my depression/confusion about my future. As the theme with just about all my updates, this too has to do with post-graduation plans, but now probably more relevant than ever. My very last semester is officially underway, I literally only have 3 months of school left, and everything that comes with that came down on me like a pile of bricks a couple weeks ago. Yes, my future is always something that is in the forefront of my mind, but it hit in almost a whole new and different way a few days ago. Maybe it is just who I am, have a fickle heart, get bored easily or something, but my change of career options over the past year has officially caught up to me. I came to Nashville wanting to work in the music business and here I am 2 and a half years later and my mind has completely changed...and it terrifies me sometimes. After 3 semester's of interning in the music business, I finally made up my mind that it really wasn't what I had imagined it to be. I have invested so much of my time and (my parents/my) money into this thing, that I really didn't want to believe what was happening. Maybe I just had a bad experience interning and I shouldn't let it throw me off, but I think it did. Everyone I know that has a preference of where I should live all think I should stay in Nashville (if going back to Ocala wasn't an option) but when trying to digest all this, I came to the conclusion that I really don't want to work in the music business...not really.

The clarity that come over me about this subject the other day was almost rather frightening. Maybe it is because of this whole new side of the entertainment industry that I am being introduced to that intrigues me so much, but my interest is almost completely gone in working in the music business. Everyone thinks I should still stay in Nashville, but when I think about it I am at a complete loss as to what to do here. Nashville is a music town, and that is what I love about it. I love this city, I really do, and I have made numerous, wonderful memories here that I will cherish, but I honestly am not sure what I would do if I stayed here. I'm sure it's my fault and something is wrong with me and my constant want to be traveling or exploring and me trying to find my place, but I am terribly sorry to feel that my time in Nashville may just be up. As much as I love and adore this town, there is something inside of me that is just telling me it is time to move on. As much as I feel at home here and think it is perfect and beautiful, there is still something that feels missing when I am here...something that I have yet to find. I know I could stay here upon graduation and be relatively happy, but there is something in me telling me to go. I can't explain it and it almost makes me sad. It makes me sad because the place I am feeling drawn to is where I feel I need to start my next journey, but it isn't where anyone I know wants me. And of course this place I am talking about is California.

It seems the only person in my family that really supports the idea of me moving to sunny ole LA is Thomas, and I can't blame them. I'm not a big fan of me moving that far away from my family either, but there is just SOMETHING inside me that keeps me searching online for info about jobs and housing there more times than not. It is every time after watching a tv show or movie and thinking "I want to be a part of that. I don't know how and i don't know what, but I just want to." All my life i've been enthralled with tv and movie's more than the average...human. I've always loved film and being behind the camera. I remember once I had my drivers license and an operating camera, one of the first things I did (once we were both allowed) was I picked up Hannah and went on a photo spree at Shalom park. I was just getting into photography and I loved it. Once I got my own laptop and discovered Microsoft Movie Maker I wanted to take more pictures of all the trips I would go on just so I could make movie's out of the pictures I took. I made videos of romania trips, mountain trips, holidays, pictures of taylor swift and her life story and a montage of photo's for my mom for thanksgiving. One of my favorite things to do was just sit in my room and edit the pictures into film. I've always known I loved being behind a camera and this just continued with my love for photography and I carried it along with me to Nashville.

So now here I am the final semester of college and my perceptions have been altered. After a brief stint in wanting to do the music business thing, I just can't picture myself wanting to do anything other than being involved with film in some way. I love music, don't get me wrong, but there is just something about knowing there is a possibility that I could be a part of the creative side of film and bringing a show or movie to life for people that really excites me. Yes, I care WAY too much about most tv shows and that is not normal, but I get invested in these shows and I love them. There is a closeness that crew members can get to film that music business people i'm not sure get to have with the music they are promoting, or marketing, or pitching. With film, you get to be a part of the process. Watching it being made, helping. Not like in the music business where anything and everything you do has the purpose of money behind it. Yes tv shows and films are made to be profitable, but if you are part of the creating of the film, that is not something you have to be exposed to like if you are working in the music business, and that is something I think that draws me to film over music.

I thought I wanted to work in the music business because I am obsessed with music, and I mean obsessed. I believe there is such power in music and that it can speak for us and bring out emotions and feelings that we could never put into words or say ourselves. I'm not sure many things will be able to effect me on the level that music has. That was the reason I wanted to get into the music business. I knew music's power and importance in my life and our world, but music and the music business are completely different things; this is the thing i've learned. Although I still believe all these things to be true, I also feel my place with music might just be better as a consumer and music lover...not as someone who see's music as money and trying to figure out ways to make people pay for the stuff and having artists shape their image into someone that is marketable. I honestly don't really care about that stuff. What I really loved was the music itself. What I really wanted was to be a part of creating something that people can enjoy to escape reality for a minute. Once I took a minute to evaluate what I really wanted to do, I noticed it wasn't really in the music business at all but maybe back with what I originally envisioned myself possibly doing...working in film.

So I know this now has become a short novel, but I write this mainly for clarification for myself. My head has not been such a fun place to be these past couple weeks with trying to figure out what exactly I want/need to do with my life after graduating, and I just needed a place to sort it out. I don't really share all too much what happens in my head with people of the outside world, so I needed somewhere to get this out. Not only to get it out but also help me figure out what exactly I was feeling and why. Trying to find the right words and feelings that I would be able to share with people that asked what I wanted to do, and why in the world I had changed my mind and why I couldn't do that in Nashville anymore; but I think after writing this novel I have figured it out. I know nothing is ever easy and actually the ONLY THING I have heard from people and read have been that what I really want to do will be hard, and is idiotic, and maybe even not what it is fantasized to be, but I guess I still foolishly believe that is where I want to be and what I want to be doing. All that being said, I have been writing this for a very long time...it is now 1:45am (not even sure when I started writing this, i'm sure over an hour ago) and I have my first strategic management test tomorrow. (Great timing on my writing this novel, i know, right? haha) So I guess I should probably finish studying for that. Anyway, in all  honesty I do not expect anyone to have read this or read this far because it was really for my own sanity, but if you have, I thank you for sticking with me and hearing me out. I hope that if you can't understand you at least see a little more where i'm coming from. (Although I really hope you feel me.) Anyway, thanks again.