Gearing up for Sundance 2010
It’s time again for the Sundance Film Festival, where I’ll be volunteering for the third year in a row. This year, I’m going to make sure that I take better advantage of my benefits, i.e. see more movies and spend more time in Park City.
I had no idea what I was getting into when I filled out my first volunteer form back at the close of 2007. It was a stressful time for me personally; a time when I felt isolated and beat down by things that were beyond my control. After two years of living in Utah, I had very few local friends and distancing relationships with old friends. It’s hard to be a left-leaning, non-religious, well-balanced late-twenty-something in the heart of strenuously quirky Mormon Country!
I didn’t blog about it because it was too personal, but it got to a point where I knew I needed to do something. I needed to do something for me. To help get me to a point where I could say that I was enjoying life and not just plodding through it, feeling victimized by all the things that were being thrown at me. The Sundance Film Festival had been on my mental To-Experience checklist since we moved to Utah, and I made the conscious decision to stop dicking around already and start doing.
The future becomes the past so quickly.
Volunteering turned out to be a fantastic decision. I had a blast, and wasn’t sorry at all about sleeping less and even taking a day (was it two?) off work. It rejuvenated my creativity and enabled me to meet a rainbow of people, some of whom I’m still in touch with at least on a Facebook-friends level. It was a great distraction from my stress-points at the time. It tickled my spirit for adventure. It helped me understand that whatever twists and turns are thrown my way, a small step toward living a richer life can go a long way.
