Decade Reflections

This is an expanded post from what I shared on Instagram on January 13th, 2021.

These two photos were taken ten years apart. The one on the right is from my 20th birthday, sitting in the Archbold Theatre at Syracuse Stage. It was Day 1 of Tech for Rent, my first internship as part of my stage management degree. My attempts to hide my birthday failed and I was awkwardly sung to by the cast and crew, two of the student cast bought me chocolate over their lunch break, and we all dove back into work bringing this show to the stage.

Back in 2011, 20 felt like the “real” beginning of adulthood. I was leaving the decade that contained my childhood mistakes and my stupid teenage choices. (I had no idea the brilliantly stupid and reckless things I was about to do in my 20s.). I spent some quiet time after work reflecting on what I wanted to start doing in this next decade of life. The directions I wanted to take. How to follow the path that I naively believe to be laid out straight in front of me.

This reflection had started two weeks earlier. On a family vacation, I had spent that NYE in a hotel room in Paris. Forbidden by my parents to wander the city alone (which as upset as I was at the time, was the absolute right call. Thanks Mom & Dad!), I sat on the narrow windowsill and wrote a list of goals and resolutions for how I would live my life and start this defining decade of my life. The first item on that list was underlined several times; I would NEVER spend another NYE in a hotel room.

Yet 10 years later, I rang in 2021 on my hotel balcony isolating from a plague I never could have imagined in my ten-year plan. I was alone, but far from lonely.

I still have the notebook from 2011. Completely by accident, it was one of the few I brought with me to Dubai this season. During my isolation here, I reread what I’d written a decade ago. My 2011 checklist mirrors my 2021 list. Do more yoga, paint more, learn more languages, stop apologizing and people-pleasing. It’s funny how some things don’t change. And at the same time, everything does.

I don’t remember where the girl on the left thought she would be at 30. Likely New York or maybe London. Or “settled down” at a nice regional theatre. Probably married. Back then, 30 seemed old. Obviously, I’d be settled down into some routine by then, with a predictable, controlled career and life. Which is hilarious looking back. An arts career will never be predictable or controlled. My mentors at Syracuse Stage made it look easy to balance marriage, kids, teaching, and managing the regional theatre. When you’re young, you expect these things to just arrive. Your partner, your path will just show up as long as you keep moving forward.

But life is much more of a zig-zag and winding route. Much more like the scenic mountain roads I grew up on than the straight grid of city blocks I call home now. I’ve lost count of the hats I’ve worn or the directions I’ve taken, absolutely certain that this would be my next “endpoint”. At 20 I pictured myself as a freelance AEA stage manager. By 23 I was leaning toward company management, then academia. At 24 I was a producer and production manager (all balanced around that academia job). Then at 25, I was on track to become a general manager. And this time I was really sure that is where I would end up. Until it wasn’t. 2016-2017 I applied to be everything from an assistant at several literary houses to the executive assistant of several artistic directors. I worked through my degree in communications and sent resumes to PR house. To event companies, to startups who needed social media managers. I dropped freelance from my vocabulary, desperate for a steady job to feel like the solid adult I was “supposed” to be at 25/26.

I received something like 16 rejections emails over the course of 10 months. I was gutted and desperate, working 4 part-time jobs to make ends meet. Then a friend from my producer days sent me a Facebook post. And while I thought “Who on earth answers a Facebook and ends up stage managing in Dubai?!?” It turned out, the answer was me. And that was a life-changing curveball I never would have predicted. And it saved my life in more ways than one.

That 20-year-old girl on the left had never heard of Dubai. Couldn’t name more than a few countries in the Middle East or locate most of them on a map. She dreamed of traveling but thought mostly of Europe or South America. Even living in London seemed like a faraway dream that wasn’t really within the realm of possibilities. Just a nice daydream. She would expect 30-year-old Kate to be in New York City. Or managing a regional theatre in a small city in the Northeast. Married. Settled down. In a routine. Some semblance of the normal life we’re taught to want.

She would never imagine I spent my first day of 30 zip-lining off a building across the Dubai Marina. She had fewer piercings and was scared of tattoo needles. She would never imagine a world outside of the classic theatre and musicals she’d lived in for 6 years. She wouldn’t have known that all of those different directions and bumbling around meant that she had created for herself a mixed bag of skill sets and tricks, one that led to her managing a circus for 2 years and still being referred to as the “Circus Ma’am” by security guards who forget her name, or maybe just prefer the nickname. Her sewing skills were never used to make costumes, but to stitch together safety straps for a Ukrainian tumbling act. She learned new swear words in Spanish and how to get attention from her staff in Russian and Arabic.

In my wildest dreams in my early 20s, I never could have imagined I would be here. I never could have pictured the life I have been so blessed to lead. The world is wild, poorly shaken, and delightfully bizarre. I am lucky that I continue my life moving forward with friends from both my childhood and new friends around the world. 10 years ago I never could have imagined this life and the people in it.

And in honor of the anxious, uncertain 20-year-old girl on the left, the 30-year-old work-in-progress on the right will not be making a 10-year plan.

If I have learned one thing in this decade (or last year!), it is that Life is impossible to predict. So I’m going to stop waiting for a special occasion, for someone else, for the “right time” to take more risks and enjoy what I have. Because I never know how much longer I’ll have it.

So for my birthday, my friend and I dove off the roof of a building in the Dubai marina simply because we could. The next day I went to finally see the stunt show I’ve been waiting to see because “I’ll have time later”. Because later so easily can become never. Too many times, it has.

My only resolutions for 30 are to stop waiting and stop thinking so much.

Here’s to another decade of the unexpected ❤️❤️❤️