There are multitudes of ways to get the message, i.e. the spark that turns you toward your purpose. Sometimes it’s through a conspiracy theory that reveals itself via strange dreams, unsettling prophesies and distant travels a la “The Alchemist.” Other times it’s through the teaching of your socially awkward yet highly creative peers, coaches and mentors al la “Glee.”
Whatever the form, a message is sent to us all. Whether we notice it or not is a completely different story. My messenger was not as romantic as the former or as fun as the latter. It was short, simple and to the point: termination.
One day I was running a half-million-dollar project in Alabama and the next returning my keycards and moving home to my parents. I was angry. Angry that I had spent all that time and exerted all my energy for a company that didn’t appreciate me.
Worst yet, I didn’t even like what I was doing or for whom I was doing it. I felt like some dorky kid had just dumped me. You know—that kid who always had a crush on you and because you felt sorry for him you let him take you out to dinner, only to have him close the night with a curt “Sorry, I don’t think you’re my type.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
So, my broken, confused ego schlepped home and, for the first time, decided to try to sit still. I hated it at first. For a person like me, the quintessential overachiever, I-have-1000-things-going-on-I-couldn’t-be-bothered-to-think, this was too much—too much thinking and not enough doing.
Even so, I jumped off the precipice and began navigating my way through a looming existential crisis. The exercise begged so many questions I was scared it would starve to death. Who are you? What have you accomplished? What are you going to accomplish? What do you want out of life and who do you want to be? As I examined each, my body got fuller and fuller until I began to ache.
I needed a release.
Since I couldn’t dance anymore—10 years of ignoring your doctor’s warnings that flat feet, weak ankles, fluid-less knees, twisted hips and pinched sciatic nerve were just not equipped to handle the stresses of dancing—I wrote. But the more I wrote, the more my mind begged. With each short story or journal entry, poem or op ed came more questions to answer.
Then I started Bikram Yoga. Ninety minutes at 105 degrees—that should do it. Yoga empties your mind not fills it.
I was wrong.
A few months later, I started filming in India. “Filming,” I thought. “Filming will do it. I’ll be so focused on what I see that I’ll completely neglect what I think.”
Apparently my mind and I aren’t well acquainted because the more I explored my mental, physical and cinematic creativity, the hungrier I got. I wasn’t the only one who observed this rather intense transformation. My parents, i.e. my perpetual captive audience, watched slowly the birth of passion, realizing that something needed to be done. It was clear that Richmond was just not for me anymore.
After much debate and deliberation (over the span of a whopping 10 days), we all came to a decision: I was moving to Hollywood.
So herein begins my living one act, surely filled with comedy, tragedy, heartbreak and triumph (not necessarily in that order). Let’s see what becomes of this tale.
Scene One: Cross-Country Tour with Elvis…
Chandni is a Richmond native who it taking a plunge in the Pacific to be a writer and filmmaker. Chandni attended Douglas S. Freeman High School and the University of Virginia graduating with a degree in Economics and American Government. She spent the last few years as a healthcare consultant living in Chicago, New York and Austin. Chandni currently lives in Manhattan Beach, California. Follow her on twitter @Chandni_Challa.
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