There Really Is A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

(All photo credit goes to Stephen Duncan. We did this shoot shortly after I moved back to Louisville, and the freedom of improvising on the roof was very synonymous with the freedom of moving away from Disney. The sun was setting on my old dreams and rising on a brighter future.)

Ever since I showed up back in Louisville, KY for my sisters’ wedding two months ago, I had this feeling that God was about to rock my world. As I talked about in my Why I Left Disney Blog, I had been through a year of torment trying to stay in the place I thought I was meant to be. By the end of it I was left beaten down and lifeless, my soul sucked dry of creativity, passion, and motivation.

When I went back home for the wedding, I was for some reason shocked at how warmly I was welcomed by all the people who had ever been important to me. I was surprised that I still mattered to them. I was also shocked at how well everyone was seeing through the façade I was putting up that “Disney was making me happy.” It baffled me. During the time of the wedding reception alone, I think I had six different people come up to me, offering me either a place to stay or a job for “if I ever decided to move home from Florida…”

Fast-forward. The taste of love I had received over the wedding weekend gave me a bug, and soon I realized that I was empowered with a decision. I could choose to continue to torture myself in isolation in Florida, or I could choose to move back home to Louisville, where every day feels as warm as that wedding weekend. In hindsight the decision was obvious, but then I was very stubborn and determined. However, less than a month after the wedding, I had made the – what was then a difficult decision – to cancel my new living situation, quit my job at Publix, and cancel my full-time request with Disney, so that I could move back home. You can read more on that in the blog I mentioned above.

Opening and Closing Doors

As I began to plan for my move home, God continued to open doors that I of course didn’t even know about. Before I even publicized my decision to leave Disney, I had already made plans with my high school teachers to be a theatre and dance instructor and hold a social media position at my beloved old Arts Center in Oldham County, KY, where I used to take dance. But the very day I published my Why I Left Disney Blog, my high school friend messaged me, referring me to a dance instructor position with the Louisville Creative Arts Academy. I was overwhelmingly ecstatic! I was going to teach theatre and dance at my old studio already, but with this second teaching position in the picture, there was a possibility of making teaching my one and only job! After such little upward movement in my Disney career, I was blown away by the opportunities that were suddenly landing in my lap.

Skip ahead to first week I moved back to Louisville. I had done the math, and even with the hours I’d be getting at my old studio, and the secondary teaching position, it looked like I’d still need a little extra something on the side. So, one day after my morning workout, I went to my desk to apply for serving jobs. Sure enough, as soon as I opened my computer, I got a text from one of my directors that she might have a third teaching job opportunity for me at a charter school. Okay, great! If I got that job, I definitely wouldn’t need a serving job on the side. I sent her my resume and closed my laptop on the further job applications.

Skip ahead to week two. I still hadn’t heard anything about the third school that was in need. Maybe God was saving me from overwhelming myself while I was just starting out as a teacher. So once again after my morning workout, I went to my desk and opened my computer to apply for a serving job. I was halfway through the application when I received another text from my director, wanting to expand my pay by offering me some administrative work on the side of teaching dance! Moments after I had closed the application once again, my other director texted me about teaching a well-paying theatre gig in the fall!

At this point it seemed crystal clear that God had absolutely no plans to let me step foot into another soul-sucking, entry level job this year, no matter how hard I tried. I’ll point out that simply because I have a college degree, I usually get called in for entry level job interviews, but I haven’t heard a peep from the restaurant I applied to. I do not think this is a plight of bad luck or coincidence. I know for a fact that I won’t be taking every one of these teaching jobs, but this all to perfect stream of events has been a God-given message to a tee. Now that I am following God’s will, the path of my future is coming so much more easily than when I was trying to manhandle my way to success at Disney. Funny how that works.

Scared to Death of Teaching

Oh yeah, there is just one problem. Did I mention I’m actually scared to death of teaching? The whole time I was being offered this myriad of teaching jobs (and mysteriously teaching jobs only), in the back of my head I was going, “Oh my gosh, I am getting in way over my head. I’ve never independently taught a class in my life, I am terrible at maintaining authority, and I may be a dancer but that doesn’t make me a good teacher!”

So being the worry wart that I am, I did all the research on teaching that I could. I called my friend who teaches dance to ask for advice. I started looking for music, drafting class structures, and thinking of warm up routines a month and a halfin advance. I tried to think about my learning experiences as a student in the classroom, and the types of things I would look for in a teacher. My perfectionistic self was determined not to suck. Well, my perfectionistic self was determined to be brilliant at something I’d never tried before – hence the pressure.There was only so much preparation I could do.

The only thing that was keeping me from backing out of all this was the plain evidence that God was carving out a path for me. In doubtful moments when I wanted to stay comfortable, He kept presenting me with little revelations at just the right moments so that I would continue to trust him a step further. I felt like I was standing on a cliff, trying to cross a ravine, and every time I took a step into the open air, God placed a floating stepping stone for me to land on. Sometimes that stepping stone was an additional job offer, or sometimes it was as small as me figuring out a lesson plan that I didn’t hate. God was really nice to me in this situation, the way he kept displaying his faithfulness to me, spiritually jaded and stubbornly committed to my own path as I had become in the past year. I knew that what I was doing was scary to me. I knew that in order to do this scary thing, there was nothing I could do to make myself brilliant at what was coming. I would have to lean totally on him. That has been a huge – dare I use the cliché word – blessing.

God Knows Me Better Than I Do

I continued to prepare, but also to pray very hard that God would work his wisdom through me. And now that I have taught my first three weeks at Louisville Creative Arts Academy, I can officially say, that 1. My hardcore preparation paid off, 2. God gave me all the right things to say to my class, and 3. That I am starting to love teaching! WHAT!?

Let me tell you something: When I worked in Disney World, I would think, “Hugging kids for a living is great and all … but this is not the skill I went through four years of college for.” Well now I can say that I am doing what I went to college for, and all while still getting to love on kids for a living. But this time, I’m in my own skin. How about that, Haley?

Friends, I think this year of teaching is about to be the perfect blend of all the things I love to do, and I didn’t even know it! Not only do I get to work in the theatre and dance field on a daily basis, but I get to work with kids. I get to use my “helper” personality to my advantage, get paid to write for my social media position, and take some dance classes on the side! This is pure proof that God knows me better than I do! If I had never listened to God speaking through my friends and family’s urges to come home, I would not be experiencing this fountain of blessings or discovering this new passion.

If I Had Gone My Own Way

To think that I was so close to torturing myself by staying in Florida for another two years is cringeworthy. There is something I have learned even after only three weeks on the job. If you are lucky enough to find work that is meant for you, it really shouldn’t feel like work. I know, I know, that is what they say. And I thought I understood and embodied this concept when I was working at Disney. Who doesn’t want to say that they love what they do? But the truth is, I’ve only come to truly understand what it means to love your job just now.

In Disney, I dreaded that alarm in the morning that would send me shortly into the triggery atmosphere of “the place I loved to work.” Yeah, the place that would leave my soul utterly drained by the end of the day … That doesn’t entirely seem to line up. Through the drab negativity I felt there, I would hear everyone talk about how lucky they were to have the coolest job in the world. And I would smile and agree, thinking to myself that maybe I was just spoiled or had too high of standards. Maybe work was just work, and it always felt like work, even if you did love what you did.

I am now realizing that I did not really love what I did that much at all. I was rather in love with the concept of what I did. The experience of doing it was a different story. I have now discovered what it is like to truly love what you do, because what I am doing now really doesn’t feel like work, and it is an extraordinary feeling! Through force of learned habit I keep self-inflicting dread upon my thoughts to keep myself in check – “soon I’ll have to go back to work and all my fun times at home will be squashed out” – until I realize I am working right now, and I have nothing to dread at all. Sure, I’ve been stressed about teaching, worrying about prepping for classes, and wondering if I have too much on my plate. But fixing all of that feels within reach. It is something I have the ability, and even responsibility to change. It is different than being in a place that has no respect for you, and treats you as such, because that is a misery you have no power over. I would rather be working hard in a place that requires responsibility and skill, than working easy in a place where I don’t matter.

A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

And now, rather than walking into work every day and feeling a nagging, soul-sucking dread and underappreciation, I get to walk into the doors of a place that has truly been my safe haven since eighth grade. This place that I am coming back to is the place where I met almost all of the people who became so important in my life. It is the place that I looked forward to every day after school and was devastated if class ever got cancelled – I even got sad when holiday breaks cancelled my time at the Arts Center! It is the place that showed me I love to dance and perform. It is the place that inspired me to make the performing arts my career. It is the place that told me I could do anything. It is the place that gave me my first trip to New York City to realize that I could in fact do this. It is a place of teamwork, where my skills and opinions are respected and appreciated. It is a warm place, full of smiling faces who love what they do, and do what they love. It is a place that feels as comfortable as crawling into bed at night, and I know that will never be undone. Because it isn’t just a workplace for me, it is and forever will be one of the most meaningful places in the world. God has brought me back to one of the most special places in my life, and I couldn’t be more blown away.

To anyone who is reading this and feeling stuck where they are, to anyone who is a few years out of college and feeling like where they are is all they will ever be good enough for, stop believing that lie. Get yourself out of your entry level job as soon as possible and find something that integrally makes you tick. The truth is you canget paid to do something that requires mental capacity, that you went to school for, or grew up wanting to do. It is a whole different world when you find your special skills are appreciated – when you find that you can get paid to do what you actually love. Ask and you shall receive. If you take your hands off and relinquish your plans to him, God just might surprise you with passions and a future you had never dreamed for your life.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock.” -Psalm 40:1-2

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