Slipping thru my fingers...

Today I went with my mom to the Walled Lake Western High School's production of The Phantom of the Opera.  We go every year to the local high school performances and I leave more upset than any bad day off my meds could ever leave me.  I can't even sit in my seat and have the lights dim before anything even starts without my eyes filling with tears.  And yes, I am an emotional person, but if I didn't live with daily regret of my past then I wouldn't feel this way.

When I was twelve I got the lead in my junior high's play.  It was where I was meant to be whether the entire thing was atrocious.  When I got to high school I was not in the plays and musicals solely because sports took up far too much of my time.  My junior year I tried out for Hello Dolly.  I had to sing a song and then do a few lines from the play.  I picked the song "Stardust" by Nat King Cole. One of my most favorite songs to date. Then came my lines.  I had to recite about a paragraph from memory and about ten words in, they stopped me, laughing hysterically, and asked me to start over.  They apologized but they said my accent was fantastic and they had never stopped an audition before. I got a call back to be in the chorus, I didn't get any of the leads due to lack of seniority.  It was kind of a bummer, but I understood.  I was one of the lead dancers and I put my heart and soul into my part.  That is the beginning of when my life started drifting downhill.  I quit the dance team and I became tangled in a web of all things destructive.  I wound up quitting the play and it broke my heart.  I left my fellow actors in the lurches because of selfishness.  I began dating a guy who was most definitely the king of the losers and from there my life was easily defined as a mess.  He treated me poorly, cheated on me, talked to me like I was scum, while I worshiped the ground he walked on.  Inevitably my Senior year, I didn't go on the exchange trip to Germany like I should have, I didn't go to Prom, Graduation, any of the senior events, I wasn't on any sports teams and I didn't do the play or musical.  Christ, if I hadn't done so well my previous three years of school, I wouldn't have graduated at all.  I let someone who didn't even care whether I was alive or dead dictate every move of my life.   The pining for the stage never left me.

I had my daughter when I was 19 and it put a lot of things in my life on hold.  I work and spend time with her and that is all that is important to me.  Or so I tell myself.  It isn't all though.  Every year when we go to these productions and I leave I am in physical pain because of how much hurt I have in my heart over not being a part of it.  So I looked up the Farmington Players & Avon players.  They have auditions coming up.  I don't even know if it is something I can do with work, but I am going to try. I have stopped working on making myself happy for the last thirteen years and I am breaking myself apart.

Did I mention that The Phantom of the Opera is my number one musical?  I know, literally, every single word.  Every line, every pitch, every tone, every note.  Today I sat in the audience lip-syncing every single word imaginable.  And while it left me with a gaping hole, it felt amazing.  Like being around the stage gives me a sense of euphoria. 

Maybe I am losing my mind.  Maybe I have dreamed up this whole regret and passion idea.  Maybe I need to give this acting thing a second change to see what I have been missing for the last decade plus.  I know that without it in my life... something is definitely missing.