Wow. Sorry I haven't posted in like... 25,000 years. Well... here I go on today's rant.
I'm seventeen years old and am walking through the Chadwick gates as an alumni in less than two months. I am performing in my last opening night show in eight hours. I am writing my last English reflection in twenty minutes. I am ending classes in one week. I am going on an excursion in three.
I don't think I've been hit yet. I don't think I know what's to come. I'm still uncommitted to college -- still have yet to make the massive choice that will change the overall outcome of my life. I'm most likely going to be a Bruin, but we'll see. The Cardinal in me has yet to get its paws of my heart and I can't focus on the clear goals I've been dreaming of accomplishing for a decade now.
Tonight, I open RENT.
I will play Maureen: an oversexed, bisexual, diva-licious, fun-loving, ambitious performing artist. I will sing my songs and go through with my performance. I'll sing and belt and wear leather pants and flirt with three + people even though I have a girlfriend. I will cry, laugh, and get pissed off. I will sing the last note of Seasons of Love with tears streaming down my face on Saturday night. I will hold their hands so tight and refuse to leave the stage. I will break down in my senior speech on closing night. I will remember being one of the lone eighth graders four years ago when Ms. Nordlund (then Frank) arrived at Chadwick and changed my life. I don't think I'll try to hold it in like I tried last year. I think it'll pour onto the tiles of the Black Box. I'll see Mark look at me again like I'm a wreck. Like "Let the Sunshine: Part Two."
I don't think I've felt so connected to a show before.
When I found out that K-Dub was leaving, I broke down in this exact seat in this exact classroom during our free reading time. Then again on the stage after my last bows of the Dance Concert. Tonight I'll be upset again, but this time it might be more numb. It's the last time, and before I've always thought "nawww, we still have ________."
No, we have nothing. Nothing more. No more "White Dolphins" will I see hidden behind a post. No more hilarious reenactments of song lyrics backstage as my fellow thespians rip up the stage. No more dressing room dance parties or mic tape annoyances or tripping over lights while coming offstage or crossing behind the curtain or trying not to hit the cyc or wiping deodorant marks off of shirts or having gross sweaty hugs or holding hands with cast mates or sitting in circles eating delicious dinners or all-day rehearsals or making gross harmony for no reason or hearing ANYTHING and relating it to a lyric or line from a show or getting hair caught in your microphone or having to go braless because of costume restraints or being surprisingly less self-conscious on the stage or late night post-rehearsal pinkberry runs with friends you have no time to get to know the way you want to or warming up ridiculously high and low or singing in the staircase and being too loud or having opportunities to interact with people you never knew or eating it offstage and discovering 10+ bruises a few days later or making once-clean lyrics obscene and dirty or singing your thoughts or just sitting backstage and taking it in or washing your costumes after the run of the show and realizing how DISGUSTING they are or mic checks with ridiculous songs or audiences so moved you want to hug them or devoted parents who watch your every performance or being known as the theater kid or talking about Jack Sage or trying to do homework when you get home at night but actually just talk to friends from the show because even though you were with them for seven hours straight, you can't get enough of them. Or blog about this all instead of focus in class because even when you aren't on the stage or in Laverty, it's the only thing that you can think about.
I'll miss it... maybe a little too much.
