From a young age, I've always found the camera memorizing. Yes, I was absolutely that little girl who would dress up for absolutely no reason when a camera was brought out for a birthday party or family reunion (a little too shamelessly). I can't tell you why that is, or when exactly it started, but a lens has always been something I've been drawn too. Fast forward to around the age of 12 when Facebook was all the rage in middle school and everyone was trying to figure out how to properly master a selfie. My interest grew from just being on camera, to being behind it. Any chance my Dad would let me borrow his Canon to take pictures of our flowers outside or our dogs quizzically eyeing the instrument I was putting to their faces was an opportunity that absolutely could not be passed up. From that age on I absolutely loved photography, and I barely knew what it was. I would daydream about having my own photography business because that frame I got of our blooming hibiscus was just that good. Before I get ahead of myself, let me not forget that I most definitely did not give up my love for being captured by the camera either. My love for being in front of a camera translated to my love for being in front of an audience around this same time. I started performing in clubhouse theaters and my school plays and fell head over heels in love with theatre (well, as hard as you can fall when you're playing a squirrel in the stage adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Alright, let's do another fast forward into high school. I still took advantage of my Dad's canon quite often and also started to fall in love with design and aesthetic captured through photos. I was still performing, and by this time theatre took up pretty much 75% of my time. Around the age of 15, that little girl who used to throw on her tutu for a family photo had her dreams filled (or so she thought) when she started modeling. My passions were scattered all over the place but if I was in a play, at a shoot, or shooting for a photojournalism project I was so fulfilled. At this point, I knew I wanted to dedicate my life to the camera- somehow or someway. Now, hear me out, I know this just sounds like wanting to dedicate your life to beauty or being at the center of attention, and maybe that was 3 year old Kaitlyn's objective, but as I got older the camera meant way more to me than that. A camera was magic; it was a time machine, an author, a story teller, all controlled by an artistic vision that is transcended onto film. To this day, I can't get enough. So here I am, studying both Acting for the Stage and Screen and Journalism simultaneously, trying to walk the tight rope between my love for capturing and being captured by a camera. But let me tell you where the problem with that sets in. As much as I try to master a laid back, "c'est la vie" persona, there is no doubt that I'm literally the biggest control freak that worries myself sick over uncertain things that I have absolutely no control over (always have been and probably will always be). So me and the future are often constantly at odds as the passions I hold don't necessarily fit into a cookie cutter major or occupation that can assure me promptly walking into financial stability and a white picket fence (overrated, but you get the point). Now listen, I know there is no such thing as a career path that 100% assures you stability or happiness; everyone feels this struggle, and the future is terrifying for everyone- but I feel split in half. Split between two completely different career paths that would theoretically bring me two completely different lifestyles. As someone who thinks very methodically, everything having to be black and white or right and wrong, I'm just as surprised as you are that this is the path I'm going down. My black and white mind set is blurring together as I'm creating video packages on a Saturday and shooting a short film on a Sunday. And there's one problem: I absolutely love them both, equally for completely different reasons. Now, I wish that right now could be the time that I give a sort of conclusion to this post, or that I give you the run down of my game plan to beat this little conflict. But in reality, there isn't one. And I think I'm in this exact spot in my life right now to be taught that. I can't live my life thinking everything has a right answer, or that there's a set plan to fix everything because if life worked that way it would be pretty easy wouldn't it? So right now, I'm learning to find happiness in the grey. In the possibility that I could do both with my life, or end up doing something wildly different. Right now where I'm at, I can definitely say I've learned how to live in the grey. It definitely took a while just to learn how to be in a position that is so uncertain, but I've got that part down. Now, I just have to learn to find the happiness in the uncertainty. The beauty of not knowing exactly where you're going, and the freedom of not being tied down to a singular place that comes with it. Seeing my black and white lines blurred as possibility not uncertainty. Of course, that's much easier to type than live out, but all I can do is try. So, I'm living in a grey blur with no idea of what comes after it, but hopefully I can write back sometime soon and talk about why I'm so happy I am.
-Kait
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