Dear Friends,

WEDNESDAY. So last night was the very first rehearsal for the blackbox musical I’ve been cast in at school! It’s not a proper book musical, but more of a cabaret of sorts. This whole first week of rehearsals we’ll be pitching solo’s, duets, large group numbers, storylines, etc. Aaaaaaand that’s all I can say about that!

I got to hear some really talented people with the most creative ideas ever last night, and it inspired me to dig deeper and think further outside the box. All in all the first rehearsal went great, so I’m really excited about my first show here in LA.

This semester I have a heftier workload, but I’m up for the challenge. I’m taking Oral Communications, Creative Writing, Stage Combat, Ballet (again. I love ballet.), Singing Styles for the Individual Artist (SUCH a cool class, I’ll talk on that later), Psychology, Individual Voice, and Vocal Coaching. Yeah. This semester is ALL perform, perform, perform. And I love it.

I’ve noticed lately how nervous I get in the moment whenever I’m singing in class. The nerves are natural, but sometimes when I don’t seem to get over them (as silly as this sounds,) it always makes me question if I’m in the right career. I’m always like “you want to do this professionally, you shouldn’t feel so nervous and scared!” Which is absolute crap, everyone feels nervous.

When I was at a callback for the blackbox musical, I was really struggling with my nerves. Not only was this my first callback, but it was my first time auditioning for any of the shows on campus. I was nervous about messing up, or not being “what they wanted”, because I really wanted to be cast in something. I don’t know how I got there, but I miraculously had the thought “You put yourself through this hell because you love what comes afterward.”

I’ve been working on catching my nerves in the moment and telling myself “don’t freak, you love what you’re doing.” And little by little that seems to center me. To me, there is nothing more powerful than singing for a crowd the way you sing by yourself. Those are the moments I’m chasing after with everything I have, every performance, every day.

THURSDAY. I’ve just finished taking my first quiz in psychology. It was pretty straightforward, 15 questions, multiple choice— I’m confident I’ll get a good grade, despite how hard it was for me to focus.

I’ve been thinking a lot about an old friend friend from back home. Without getting into specifics (out of respect for their privacy), they’ve recently taken some exciting ‘next steps’ in life that I know will lead to a successful, lucrative career. Hearing about their good fortune made me so happy for them, but it also made me sad because their next step means I’ll probably never see them again.

Our lives are going in completely different directions. I hear all the time that growing away from friends is a necessary, unavoidable fact of life, one that I have experienced first hand. The last couple of months I’ve been trying to determine if I’m naive to want to reach out, and ‘renew’ our friendship. It’s been a few years since we’ve even spoken at all, and before that, senior year had put a lot of strain on things. I reached out to her a while ago to mend things, and although that went well, we never got around to actually getting together and catching up.

I was tired of being in this state of limbo, and I was tired of not talking to someone I thought would be my friend for life. But for awhile I’ve been too afraid to reach out— maybe it’s just been too long. Maybe they’re not interested or simply too busy for this friendship, which would hurt, I’ll be honest. Maybe they’re a totally different person now. Maybe, maybe maybe.

I’ve been praying a lot on this (as any Christian does) and I feel God’s been giving me a lot to think about. Yesterday in my creative writing class, my teacher commended a student for her story about distancing herself from old friends. She had written about how she wished the best for her friends, but for her own personal growth and development she had to go a different way. Our teacher said he thought that took a lot of maturity to do, and it made me wonder, was this a sign? Am I not supposed to reach out? Something was said in class that really stuck out to me.

“I still want you to eat, just not at my table.”

That’s kind of where I was when I graduated high school. I wanted nothing but the absolute best for them, but I’d had a really tough year and I needed some time to be on my own. I had to catch my breath, put the past behind me, and set my sights on the adventure ahead: moving to New York.

Then my freshman year came and went. I realized that I wasn’t letting go of things as quickly and as easily as I wanted to. It wasn’t even about letting go, it was about allowing myself to heal. By spring, almost a year since I’d seen or spoken to my friend, I finally was myself again, but in a whole new way. I was ready to mend fences, because not having this person ‘at my table’ felt wrong. I wrote about my decision to break my silence and fix things before on my blog, (I even went back and re-read that post today in the hopes I could find the answer to my dilemma) but after we made tentative plans to get together over the summer and catch up, we were both too busy to do so, and nothing has happened since.

After that summer came and went and we never got together, I’d ‘made peace’ with the idea that we were probably just going to be two people who loved and supported each other from afar. Liking posts on instagram, commending each other on life achievements down the road, but not close friends like we were before.

I hadn’t given any of this much thought until I moved to LA. For whatever reason, I’d had a dream that I ran into them here on the street, and we got to actually reconnect. I had another dream about seeing them back home over the holidays. It was all so random, and I didn’t know what brought it on, but it made me realize I actually missed them. I heard through the social media grape vine about all their exciting accomplishments recently, and something in my heart said “now”.

And that’s where I’m at. Sitting here, having a very strong urge to reach out, but being very, very, very unsure about whether or not I should. This is going to sound so dorky, but I’m afraid of being pushed away. I texted my best friend Dana and asked her, “How do you know whether or not God has put something on your heart? I’m so bad at recognizing when He’s giving me the green light for something I want to do, or if He was the one to put this decision on my heart in the first place.” She told me that if she can’t stop thinking about something, especially if it’s something she’s already processed and tucked away, that’s normally a sign. I turned to the Bible for the end-all answer, and I landed on 1 John 4:7.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

I realized it doesn’t matter what actually happens if I reach out, because ultimately God calls us to love. I decided that I’d rather love everyone around me fearlessly, always extend an invitation to grow friendships, than be too afraid to try.

I texted them, we made plans to FaceTime the next day, and that call went good. We talked about high school, about life so far, and we’re going to try and actually get together in June.

I don’t know what this new stage of friendship is going to bring. I hope it becomes something great. Either way, I’m not going to worry, I’m just going to love all and trust in God.

Until the next cup of coffee,

-Ken