Filed under: 1
I’m having so much fun blogging. I live alone and sometimes I get lonely. Blogging makes me feel that I have someone to talk to in the midst of all the silence. I’m not sure if anyone is reading it, but it still makes me feel good. Alright, I know at least one person is. I pay someone to read them and act interested. Just kidding!
I’ve been thinking about my life today and trying to put my finger on why it is that I’m so happy. I’m getting old. I’m over weight. I live alone. My children are grown and gone, and all I do is study. This is a true example of what negative thinking looks like. Then I flipped the coin.
I’m still aging, so that means that I’m not dead. It means that I still have a chance to change anything that I don’t like such as being overweight, which by the way, is not a permanent diagnosis. Yes, my children are grown and gone, but what’s really to be sad about that. For heaven’s sake, their happy, healthy, and most of all INDEPENDENT! I do study all the time, but it makes me feel good when my mind is growing and my body isn’t. I feel good about not keeping my face in the television, but rather keeping it in a book.
Isn’t it amazing at how the different approaches to thinking and life makes you feel. I never thought that I would be starting all over again at this time in my life, or that I would be alone, but I am. Most of all, I never thought that finding myself here that I could manage to turn it around to be happy again, but I have.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that regardless of what life throws at you, you can survive it. Trust me, I’ve played in the major leagues. I have been thrown some real curve balls in my life time, and I know that we’re capable of overcoming them. It’s not always easy, and sometimes we may feel that we’re not going to, but we do. You keep putting one foot in front of the other and before you know it, you’re walking out of the bad into something wonderful.
For those of you that know me, you understand that not too long ago that something very tragic and unexpected happened to me. It rattled my world and completely knocked me off of my feet. I thought it had me. I really seen no way of bouncing back, but I did. Grace stepped in, and when I couldn’t do anything for myself but grieve, God did the rest.
It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened, and here I am today telling you how happy that I am. I mentioned this because I know that I’m not the only one that’s going to get hit with a curve ball that knocks you down, and too, because I have someone that I want to thank. Yes, here I go again thanking someone, but it’s important that we do so.
I don’t want to go into details, but I want to thank Mr. Webb in the theatre department. I took one of his classes, which by the way, I highly recommend. You will love it! All my life I had wanted to be in a play, or just to know what it felt like to be able to stand in front of a crowd and have them mesmerized. It just amazes me how actors transform themselves into something that seems so real. Anyway, to make a long story short, he convinced me to try out. Now here I am, sitting beside a young girl and we’re both waiting for our turn. I’m 2x her age, and she already had 2x the experience. She knew the correct way to audition and was practiced to the hilt. Here I was, I had no idea on what to say or do.
My heart was beating in my throat, in my head, and I sware I think I could feel it in my shoes. I got up to leave the building I don’t know how many times, but somehow I managed to stay in my seat until it was my turn. When I walked out on the stage I was thinking that he was going to give me something to read, but he didn’t. I was supposed to re-enact something that I had prepared, or already knew which was absolutely, NOTHING!
You talk about PANIC! Before I knew it, I began to talk about the bad experience that had happened to me. It was like I was telling a theatre full of people, though no one was there listening other than Mr. Webb, and myself. I’m sure he thought this poor crazy woman, but he NEVER let it show. He listened, he was professional, and two months later, I received a call to be in a play. Which by the way, I declined because I knew he must have only pitied me.
The acting was awful, if you could even call it that, but the relief that came from standing on that stage and talking about what had happened to me was enormous. It was like a huge weight was lifted off of me. The weight of that burden left, and the fact that I was able to overcome my fears of standing on that stage, changed me.
I will always be grateful to Mr. Webb for encouraging me to reach beyond my comfort zone, and for treating me as if I had just given a normal audition, of which I knew I hadn’t. Sitting there and listening to me was probably a small thing to him, a small gift or gesture on his part, but to me it was one of the greatest gifts that I have ever been given. It was that moment that I realized that I was bigger than the problem. I could overcome it! How many times are we tempted when choosing a gift to pick the biggest, or the prettiest and shiniest package? I have learned that sometimes, the greatest of gifts comes in the smallest of ways.
NACC is so fortunate to have the theatre department that we do. I would like to thank all the people who support it and who help to keep it at the caliber that it is. If you have not seen any of our plays you have to do so. They are so great. I have never seen one that was not outstanding.
So in closing, try to remember that sometimes the smallest gestures on your part can have the greatest significance to another.
See you at the theatre!
Glenda
