Chomy, the blogspot of Myles

May 5th, 2024

On the nature of growing up

Friday was my last preformance in my schools drama program, as I am graduating high school in 2 weeks. It was a little surreal, I did my best to keep it together until the curtains closed and when that happened, I fell apart on my fellow cast members. Saying that makes me sound a bit like high school will be my peak but my three years of doing this, I always felt out of place. The friends never really mattered to me, only the acting and making the audience smile. I have autism and I keep to myself so making friends wasn't natural to me until this year. I gave people hugs at the end of the night, something I never do. I will miss them all and this program but all things end and I'm happy to move to another thing to pour my soul into.
I realized two important things these past two weeks. Theatre never gave me time to invest in hobbies and skills I love, and I also have never truly lived in the moment. A little bit ago, J* let me borrow her ukelele, as I don't know how to play an instrument. I had so much fun learning it, but I only had two days where I could really enjoy myself because show week was just around the corner. Now that everything is over, I think I am going to dedicate my first year of college into learning skills I've never done or want to develop. My strongest and weakest personality trait is that I am very ambitious. I want to do everything at least once but I never had the time to. Now I do :)
On being present, well, I also have a really bad habit of being on my phone a lot, usually doomstrolling or texting J*. Even writing this, I spent five minutes scrolling on instagram reels. On Friday's preformance, it was espically bad. J* was gonna be late and it kind of sent me into a tizzy because it was my last show. I couldn't focus at all, only on when she was gonna show up. During intermission, we did our tradition of telling secrets. The whole time I was stressing still about it and it made me feel so embarassed even though I didn't show it. At the end of telling secrets, we break a glass bottle to represent our burdens going away. As we did it, we all screamed at the top of our lungs and it made me realize how good life is outside of her and my phone. She texted me, saying she was probably not going to make it but still was planning on spending some time with me after the show to congradulate me and see me. I realized even if I didn't text her all the time and worry about her, she still cared about me, as everyone else does. The show was over, we hung out for a little bit while the stage was getting striked and I went to the cast party. It was bittersweet but it made those two realizations of mine stew in my head harder. I'm happy it's over and I'm happy to be growing up.