The "end"
I’ll never be able to properly explain the mixture of bizarre emotions you are exploding with when you throw that funny shaped cap into the air. I doubt I’m the first who had to hold back the tears and I certainly won’t be the last.
Graduating from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts was the happiest, proudest, saddest and scariest moment of my life. I sat in awe watching some of the most creative and talented people in the industry collect their degree, and also watched two of my closest friends recieve awards for being the best kind of people: giving, selfless and inspiring. I’ve never been more proud, seeing them be recognised for embodying everything LIPA stands for. In that crazy school I found my friends, my future, my passion and best of all myself (I also found my inner animal and how to crush 400 parma violets in 7 minutes under life threatening pressure… don’t ask). For three magical years I have had the privilege to wake up and not know what weird and wonderful way my day was going to go. This started on day one when I met the class of 2016. I wonder now if I’ll ever be as 100% certain as I was in September 2013. I remember after weeks of nerves and tears in the run up to LIPA, being filled with assurance as we formed our first circle in this huge rehearsal room and started to get to know each other. We were a room full of huge personalities and some of us had never quite fit in, but in each other we found acceptance. You could be yourself in that room with these people, and that is pretty valuable when learning how to accurately portray other people. I knew I’d found my lifelong friends and would spend three years being reminded how completely right I was on day one. (I’d also spend three years being completely and utterly wrong about a lot of things but ah well, that’s life)
It’s a very special thing to continue to be surprised in life. But it’s an even better thing to have been provided with the skills to surprise yourself. I don’t want to bore you by harking back to the variety of bizarre tasks we have been set, but some things just need mentioning.
• Running around the block TWICE at full speed because you had pretended to forget your phone and falling to your knees in joy in when you arrive at a pretend lesson on time. • Building a house of cards to prevent your mates boyfriend been blown up. • Spending hours of my life trying to fully become a deer.
These tasks (plus thousands more) are some of the things that have made the future I dream of seem possible. I know how important it is now to find new passions, say yes to scary things and squeeze the most out of every moment. And I don’t even really know how I’ve learnt it but bloody hell, I have.
So why am I writing all of this reflective pondering down? Because it’s the end of LIPA, and the beginning of something much scarier, but so much more exciting. And I want to share all the ups and the downs here so I continue to self reflect. And I’d love to bore you all with anecdotes of my life.
Next on the agenda for me is the big move. I’m going to London (to buy a heat maga- no. No). No, I’m going to London to start a new adventure. My agent is based there and something tells me the next big chapter starts there too. So going back to that cap flying through the air. When I threw it I was a LIPA student, and when I caught it things got scary. It means I have to go and do what I’ve paid a lot of money to learn to do well: be a deer. Kidding. Act, perform, change and keep on learning.
AND FINALLY, there is a saying on the wall of LIPA outside the Paul McCartney Auditorium I have walked past almost everyday for three years, and I finally truly understood it yesterday when John and Django received their awards for being the best kind of people,
“Non Nobis Solum Sed Toti Mundo Nati.” Which means: Not born for ourselves alone, but for the whole world.
I think I’m ready.
