One of the many lessons you will learn from following your dreams, is there is always sacrifice that comes along with it. No matter what that dream entails, you have to let something go in order for it to come to fruition. For me, my dream is to continue to perform professionally in the West End, which is America’s equivalent to Broadway.
For years and years, I knew that performing in London is something that I wanted to accomplish, but had no idea of how that dream would come true. After contemplating and second guessing myself, I decided that I would quit teaching full time to move to London to pursue this dream. What did this mean though? It meant that I would be leaving my comfortable life behind to move to a place where I was not guaranteed to be successful. Not having any plans or jobs lined up other than going to school was extremely unlike me and scary.
As with any dream, you will have people that doubt you. I had people question my choice saying things like “are you sure this is what you want” and “what are you going to do when you are over there”? Many valid questions, but not the ones that I wanted to hear. What I wanted was encouragement, belief, and support. Yes, those things existed and I got them, but they were overpowered by the loud voices of negativity that tried to take my dream away.
As a result, I started to doubt myself. I started to believe that maybe what I wanted was not what I needed to pursue. I began to pick up the pieces of life I knew in order to forget the life that I wanted. But then something changed. Something within knew that this dream was what I wanted so I continued to pursue the dream.Here I am exactly 3 months since moving to London, working professionally, and living my dream.
Now you may be asking “Marcus why did you need to tell us this” or “why is sacrifice so important”? I would answer you and say because one of the biggest sacrifices I had to make with this dream is not being home for the Holidays. Christmas is vastly approaching and as I hear my cast and university friends talk about being with their family makes me miss my family even more. Being here living my dreams means not being able to see family as often.
I urge you today to reach out to those who may not have a home to go to this holiday season and open up your home to them. Hannah, Madi, Cindy, and many other families all have opened their home to me multiple times when I could not be home as I lived out my dreams in America and it made a huge difference rather than being alone. Without their love, support, and generosity, I would have spent many holidays alone. Many LGBTQ+ persons may not have a loving home to be in and if they knew you could be that for them, it would change their world for the better. Choose love this holiday season. Choose joy this holiday season. Choose family.
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