It's Funny

Life can change so quickly. Expected, unexpected...the changes just keep coming. In 2008 I experienced a horrible life change. 20% of my immediate family all of a sudden getting sick and dying. Yes, it was only one person, but the 5 of us were a team. An often dysfunctional and sometimes weirdly codependant team, but a team nonetheless. And in 48 days we went from 5 to 4. I felt all the stages of grief. I still feel like I cycle through them, even though it has been over a year since Mimma passed. I am a different person because of it.

2009 has brought forth change as well. Sometime in March, I asked the shy, quiet construction worker with the incredible opera voice in my musical theater class if he'd sing a song with me. The song was A Little Priest, from Sweeney Todd. It was the most fun I've had in my class. When our showcase performance was over, I got more accolades from random audience members than I have ever gotten in my life...and Michael insisted it was time. It was time for me to get back on stage for real.

When I got the email from my teacher, I didn't think much of it. It was announcing that one of our vocal coaches was music directing a musical, Nunsense, in the West Valley and they were having auditions the next week. The audition conflicted with a camp directors' meeting. The show conflicted with camp. After much discussion (M and I do nothing with simplicity) we decided it was worth trying. The process could be a blog post in and of itself, but to keep it brief, I'll just say- I got the part.

The process has brought me to tears of happiness, of anger, of frustration, and of pure joy...and with all of that it has given me a gift I had all but given up on. It gave me back my passion. From the day my stepmother chastised me for telling a dinner guest who asked what I was interested in that I was an actress ("Don't call yourself that, it's pretentious and it makes it seem like you're saying you're a professional, which you are not. No one pays you.") to the day that my HS counselor told me I needed to lose weight to land better parts to the day my college boyfriend suggested I work on costumes to continue my work in theater post graduation and beyond...the roads all led me away. I am back now. And it's really quite wondrous. I can't believe I let it lie for as long as I did.

So I advise, if you have something you love doing that you don't do...stop not doing it.