I'm Graduated, Y'all!

 Yesterday, I became an alumnus of the School of Drama at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.  It was an amazing graduation, complete with the Dean of Academics rising from the orchestra pit with a bouquet of balloons via the film Up, graduates dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow, and Peter Bogdanovich as our University Speaker.  Everyone in the school of drama graduated in red noses.  You can kinda seen mine in this picture with my buddy Wayne!

And you know how I'd been talking about how it hadn't 'hit me' yet that my collegiate career had come to an end?  Well, I was so busy during our showcase and interview time in NYC and LA that even as I was receiving my diploma it still just felt like another performance.  When I woke up Saturday morning I felt like I was committing a sin because I was going to be on stage without doing a warm up.

But last night as I was lying in the bare apartment that had been filled with me for two whole years for the last time, I started to get jealous of the person who was going to move in there next fall.  Not only had it been my apartment for two years, it had been a 'drama girl' apartment for at least the past five years.  What if the person who moved in there next year wasn't like us?  What if they made it a big mess and didn't use it to work really hard?  When I started thinking about those things, and realizing how genuinely worried and upset it was making me, I realized that I'd finally be hit.

I just got back home to Kentucky, and it's still sinking in.  Sometimes when big things happen in your life like this, you forget about them for awhile.  Then all of a sudden you remember.  And I'll tell you something, it's scary.

I've not really ever been scared much in my life.  But after being home tonight, and seeing my kitties and being pampered with amazing food I thought, "Whoa.  This is why people start living 'temporarily' with their parents after school and end up still temporarily living there when they're 30.  Because it's scary."  I've been a student my entire life...it has been something that has defined me and it no longer does (You can see me on the right in the red dress in the graduation picture!).  

 Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited to move to NYC in July and already have and apartment and a move in date and I'm ready to go!  But I also think it's healthy to acknowledge the fear with the excitement and just say hello to it.  It will not hold me back.  I'm sure after I've decompressed and wrapped up my loose ends from showcase and visited all of my family, I'll be going a little stir crazy and be ready for the next adventure.

But for the next couple weeks, I'm going to soak up the sun in Kentucky before the real life rain starts pouring down.  I plan on getting a bright pink umbrella!

--Jasmine Anne Osborne