On(e) Track

          I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m standing at the edge of a precipice, my options scattered beneath and around me and I’m at a loss. I am lost. One step in this direction, a glance the other way, a dabble here and there, and I’m floating; untethered by my paralyzing lack of specificity in my next steps, I feel my heart beat like little wings bringing me higher and higher until I can see my world from above. My life thus far, trends on one line—shaky, a bit blurry, yet still, it’s solid—leading me to where I am now and then it fades into dashes and dots spread about in dozens of directions that lead to the next dream, the next job, the next plan. It’s up to me where I go and what I do next and I feel the clammy jitters of unease reverberate throughout my bones.

          When I was a child, my parents used to call me “One Track Hannah” all the times that I would fixate on an idea, an object, a scenario. “Hannah,” they’d say, sweetly, coaxingly, “you’re obsessing… just relax; be in the moment!” and I’d be left to figure out not only what it was I was “obsessing” about, but also how to stop doing it. To figure out what and how to “relax” and “be in the moment” meant. As I matured, my “tracks,” my own personal choruses on repeat over and over and over showed themselves in more identifiable ways: little things I’d see on the first days of vacations that I would talk of endlessly until my parents caved, how on earth I’d get into college, when, approximately, I’d discover my one big dream and purpose and how much the world would weigh if it all came crashing down on top of me if I couldn’t quite figure out what and who and how and where I was meant to be inside of it all.

          I was sixteen when I thought I found it— a Hannah-shaped hole in the vastness of the universe, waiting for me to step up and fill it; my happiest fantasy—and twenty-five when I noticed it fading, the stubborn stains of graphite visible, but disappearing after years of erasing and retracing. After COVID-19 made it to the United States and companies began to close their doors and evaluate what and who was deemed “essential,” I found myself furloughed and then displaced into a new department; a Character Performer trading in heavy fur costumes for billowy patterned pants and endless hours of standing. Once a fantasy, backlit with the promise of fulfilment, now a harsh and brutal reality, twisted and confusing.

          I work in a theme park, selling overpriced t-shirts and printing ride photos and if I were somehow able to visit my sixteen-year-old self and tell her of her inevitable future, I’m nearly certain she’d cry tears of anger and frustration, confused and heartbroken on where she’d made a wrong turn. It’s not that I failed or ignored my own brilliant plan or even got lazy and gave up, I just never planned to be turning twenty-seven and making minimum wage in a job that does not correlate to a clear, passion-filled career.

          I grew up dancing. Taking classes since I was a loud and flamboyant toddler, I have no memory of a life before. It was as much a part of me as the freckles that pepper my nose or the dimples on my cheeks and yet, as much as I loved the feeling of my body carving through the space around me, I knew that I didn’t have the gall and the grit (nor the level of talent) required of those intent on pursuing a career onstage. I desperately wanted to want it—the long, grueling rehearsals, the battle scars earned from fearless diving at the hard floor; the innate trust that I would not crash and break into pieces on impact; the thrill born from living my life in a spotlight for others to envy and applaud—but in my heart of hearts, I knew I didn’t. I loved to dance, but not in the way the industry required me to. I knew I’d never make it “in the real world,” so I set my sights on those of make believe—the theme parks. At sixteen, my track clicked into place—a record that felt familiar and exciting and right; my path outlined; my future planned.

          The part I never fully anticipated, nor planned for, was the next step, the “okay, now what?” If my sixteen-year-old self laid the groundwork with which I was to build my life, she severely, innocently undershot. I only knew as far as I had now reached—move to Orlando to try my hand in live entertainment—but as far as the next, the after, I have no clue. I guess I had naively hoped that by the time I got to the last item on my crudely undetailed and childish list—“Figure it out when I get there!”—I’d have all of the answers on just how to do that, this next stage of my life. I’d have spent my young adult years dancing, laughing, and living my best and truest and happiest life as I became this person whom I didn’t know, but knew I wanted to be.

          And yet, here I am, hovering over this box—the last I had foreseen—unsure of what or where or how to proceed. I received my undergraduate degree in dance, thinking that it made the most sense given my aspirations, and while it is certainly hard to determine whether or not I would go back and do it again differently, I do wonder what might have been had I maintained the ability to play different tracks, different records, different songs at a younger age. I can’t help but wonder if I were to find myself on the hills of my alma mater, where would I start? Most everyone I know found their passions and interests, goals and dreams for a prosperous future while they were in college. Most everyone I know now has a salaried job in a field they are excited about; one they know to be sustainable and supportive; one that gives them a strong and sturdy foundation to flourish.

          Adult life feels impossible for me right now for many reasons, but one of them is rooted in the confusion I feel toward every person who somehow, at some point, found at least one thing that they are good at that somehow directly correlates to something they can get paid for. It’s as if I missed some memo that was passed around while I was daydreaming about leaving the real world and entering a fake one and I’m just now waking up and realizing how truly lost and confused and blindsided I feel. It’s not as though I have no talents or vague interests, it’s that for the life of me, I can’t exactly determine what positions to approach while scanning for “creative writer.”

          I have one more quarter left in my graduate degree program and for the first time since I started working in the theme park industry in 2017, I am approaching my end. I’m excited, unsure, and downright paralyzingly terrified. I don’t want to stay; I can’t stay because I value my time and talents and goals of personal growth too much, but as the graduation date grows closer and the life I envisioned for myself in entertainment fades away, I’m gripped with a rising sense of panic. I find myself questioning everything and doing close to nothing—as if staying in the misery of my current position, “comfortable” yet unfulfilling and unhopeful outweighs the terror and the work required to nudge myself in the direction of a new dream, a new track.

          It astounds me how people manage to manage their lives and loves and plans. I feel like I’m teetering, about to fall to my death off a cliff I cannot see and people my age are having children? Saving money? Taking international vacations? I am a firm believer in the process, in the notion that everything happens for a reason and that ultimately, lives are lived and—in most cases—reflected on fondly. But right now, I’m doing all I can not to slip.

Written for Master of Arts in Professional Creative Nonfiction Writing at the University of Denver; August ’21