The Middle Is Where It Happens

A watercolor painting of an open window with warm golden light streaming through

I've bombed auditions. Real bombs. The kind where you walk out of the room and you already know, before the callback list goes up, before the email comes, before anyone says a word. You know in your bones. And that walk to the car is one of the longest walks there is.

I've also gotten the call. The callback. The part. The yes. And I've learned something strange about those two experiences: I wouldn't trade the bombs for the wins. Not because the wins don't matter. They do. But because the bombs taught me something the wins never could.

They taught me that I can take a no and keep going.

The No That Means Not Yet

Here's what I've come to believe. When you're passionate about something, when it's genuinely yours, when it's the thing you'd do even if nobody paid you or clapped for you, then a no isn't a period. It's a comma. It means not yet.

Not yet ready. Not yet the right fit. Not yet the right room, the right season, the right version of you.

That doesn't mean every no is a not yet. There are absolute nos. There are doors that close and stay closed. There are things that aren't meant for you and never will be. And knowing the difference between a not yet and a never is one of the hardest skills you'll ever develop. But that's the skill. That's where the wisdom lives.

The Serenity Prayer gets at this, and I've always loved how it lands: grant me the courage to change what I can, the peace to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. I think passion is what gives you all three at once. Passion gives you the courage to try again after the no. It gives you the peace to accept the doors that are truly closed. And it gives you the wisdom to know which is which. Because when you care enough about something, you learn to read the signs. You learn when to push and when to let go. The passion itself becomes your compass.

The closed door that teaches you something

Persistence Isn't About What Other People Believe

People will believe in you. That helps. A teacher who sees something in you. A director who calls you back. A friend who says keep going. Those voices matter. But they can't carry you through the long middle. Not by themselves. Because they're not in the room with you at 11 PM on a Tuesday when you're running a scene alone in an empty rehearsal space. They're not in the car with you on the drive home from the audition you know you bombed. They're not the ones who have to wake up the next morning and decide to try again.

That's just you. That's your belief in yourself. And that's the only thing that actually lasts.

I don't mean blind belief. I don't mean pretending everything's fine when it's not. I mean the quiet, stubborn knowing that you're still growing, still learning, still becoming the person who'll walk into that room and nail it. Not because you're perfect. Because you're persistent.

The Audition That Taught Me Everything

I remember one specifically. I walked in feeling good. I'd prepared. I was ready. And then I opened my mouth and nothing worked. My timing was off. My choices were flat. I could feel the table shift in their chairs. I knew, before I even finished, that I'd lost them.

I drove home in silence. I sat in my car in the driveway for a long time. And I had a conversation with myself that I've had many times since. It went something like: you can let this mean you're not good enough, or you can let this mean you've got more to learn. Those are the only two options. There's no third door.

I chose the second one. Not because I'm noble or heroic. Because I wanted it. I wanted it badly enough that the no didn't change my direction. It just changed my approach.

I went back to class. I worked on the things that had gone wrong. I auditioned again. And again. And I got some yeses. And I got more nos. And I kept going. Not because everyone believed in me. Because I believed in myself. And I wanted it enough to let the nos teach me instead of stop me.

Passion Isn't a Feeling. It's Fuel

We talk about passion like it's a warm emotion. Something you feel when you watch a sunset or listen to a song you love. And it's that. But it's also something harder. Passion is what keeps you in the chair when the writing isn't flowing. It's what gets you on stage when you're tired. It's what makes you run the scene one more time when everyone else has gone home. It isn't the easy part. It's the reason you endure the hard part.

And endurance is the real skill. Not talent. Not luck. Not connections. Endurance. The willingness to stay in the game long enough for the game to change. And the game always changes. It just does it on its own schedule, not yours.

So Here's What I Want to Say to You

If you're in the middle of it right now. If you just got a no that stung. If you're wondering whether to keep going or pack it in. Ask yourself the questions that matter. Do you still care about the why? Are you still learning? Is the pain growing you or breaking you?

If the answers lean toward yes, then stay. Not blindly. Not forever. But long enough to see what happens next. Because the middle is where the work happens. The middle is where you find out what you're made of. And the middle is where you build the thing that'll carry you through every no that comes after.

Hang in there. The hard part isn't a sign you're wrong. It's a sign you're building something worth building. And when the yes finally comes, when the scene lands, when the audience laughs, when you walk out of the room knowing you gave them everything you had, it'll be worth every single moment you almost walked away.

Because a no from someone else is just a no. But a no from yourself is the only one that actually ends the story. Don't let that be the one you hear.

The sunrise that comes after the long night