That's a wrap (For Boll Theatre)

People who come to terms with quitting are usually the happiest. I first heard this in an episode of Freakonomics Radio entitled The Upside of Quitting a long, long time ago back when I was a gymnast in the 7th grade. Gymnastics was something I’ve done for over ten years of my life. I’m so happy I did gymnastics because I have super cool videos of me moving my hips to make circles around a mushroom. I can do more pull-ups than most of my friends even though I rarely go the gym. And most of all, I can climb anything better than anyone else. I remember coaches telling me to “Climb the rope” sometimes 10 times when I’d get into trouble.

My dad wanted me to continue with gymnastics, but eventually, I quit after the 30th time I told my dad “I wanted to quit” over the course of a year. There’s a lot of things I’m glad I didn’t quit though. One of them is Piano. When my parents criticized me for not practicing, I told them maybe it’s time for me to quit, but they didn’t really let me. I still went to piano lessons and even though I only practiced for ~1hr/week and showed up to lessons unprepared (which is average for most people), sticking with it led to me becoming a fluent and comfortable pianist, especially once I started practicing more.

So when I quit my job at Boll yesterday, it was a tough decision to make. I have only felt that tremendous pressure and anxiety three times. One was before a piano recital when I was at Jazz Express and had a piano solo all alone. I was so stressed and worried that I am getting anxious just thinking about it now. Luckily, muscle memory trumps any time of logical thinking and I did quite fine. The second is quitting gymnastics and coming to that conclusion. Coach Greg Skupski asked me rhetorically “you want to be a gymnast, right?” And I shocked him when I said “no.” I remember him being very supportive at the time. I remember him being in shock. I remember not understanding that every child goes through puberty at different times and being ashamed that I could not do 5 million pull ups because I got bigger because my muscles didn’t come in yet.

I remember feeling shame when I quit gymnastics. I remember feeling shame when I didn’t think I could play my piano solo and had trouble coming to terms with that. And now, I remember the same fear and senseless anxiety that’s causing me to fret about my job even after I turned int my 2-weeks notice. I feel shame when really, it doesn’t matter. I don’t regret quitting gymnastics… maybe a little because I’m not flexible, but it allowed me the opportunity to run lights and gain technical knowledge in the theatre. And I have a good feeling that I won’t regret quitting my job at Boll Theatre. Even though I let my lighting talents go to my head and had an amazing boss shape, Matt Evans and Ryan Wantland, to shape me into who I am now, quitting is going to afford me the opportunity to focus on computer science. It’s going to let me afford to have friends and live life without drinking as much coffee.

But despite this shame I feel, everyone has been great to me. Becca Trumbull knew from my roommate for the last week that I was quitting my job. Even though I didn’t tell her directly, an hour before my meeting, she asked me how I was. I told her simply, “I had better days,” and she gave me a much needed unusually long hug. I asked her if she knew; she said yes. I wanted my boss to know first and purposely waited to tell anyone that I’m quitting for-sure; however, out of everyone, I’m glad she was there to boost my confidence. Tessa Jatczak was the first person I told about leaving the job; she supported my decision the entire time. Both my bosses were understanding and calm (to my surprise). Sarah Newman and Nick Rollin gave me hugs. He told me Matt said “he’s a goner” to the crew. I was hoping to get maybe a sentence of something not like ‘he’s dead’ - but I can’t blame him.

So here’s to the future… to a life filled with friends baking chocolate chip cookies and making fancy Arduino-powered RFID door locks. To a trip to Costa Rico to film a documentary. New adventures await.