After Some Vanilla Vodka

First, thank you Alison for actually reading this. Apparently you and my Mom think I'm a great writer. :-)

Now, first yes this is not a sober post. I have had an INSANE week and it's not over yet. If there are any teachers out there, you know this time of year. Everyone else is telling you how lucky you are to get your summer vacation and how it is so easy to be a teacher. But this week alone we had field day (or run around in the sun and yell at children in a potato sack day), a field trip (or run around in the sun and yell at  children in a theme park day) and grades due. On top of that I have two students who know they have two weeks left, who are out of their mind bonkers with excitement, who have given up and who I have to beg, pry, bargain and plea with to try and get them to finish said work for said grades due tomorrow and I am splendidly unsuccessful with.  So, as I hope you can see, I need a drink tonight.

So tonight, instead of writing another Dear Jen Lancaster (as she is not reading this I have come to begrudgingly understand. HOWEVER, Laurie Notaro did read it, she commented on the post I wrote to her so I take that as a definite WIN!), I am just writing. I am writing to try and find the mojo that I seem to have lost. I was thinking back to when I had first moved to Florida, at 23 and how awesome I felt. I moved to a new state, got my first real job, my first apartment and was making it on my own. I felt powerful and strong. I had fun, got out of hand, made some mistakes, but nothing I couldn't redeem or move on from. I was good. Now I feel old. It's only six years later and I feel a lifetime has gone by. I don't get out of hand, I pay my mortgage. I don't make silly mistakes, I drink green tea. I don't know how I got to be middle aged at 28, but I did. I have a grown up job with grown up friends (whom I love but don't know what my 2 am karaoke sounds like or my philosophy after too many rum and cokes) and I'm assured this happens to everyone, I just didn't know it happens at 28. So in a month and a half I will be 29 the last number before the big one and my grown up me knows I will celebrate with a sensible lunch date with friends because that's what a 29 year old teacher will do. What I really want to do, what my 23 year old self wants to do, I'm just not sure anymore.

Since no one is reading this anyways

So here I am. My last post had one view (thanks Mom). So since no one is even looking why am I constantly scrutinizing what I write here. Yes, I love my Henshaw Redux letters but I don't have one tonight. Tonight it's just me and I had a rotten day so here it is. This is mine and tonight I'm hijacking it from the readers.

I don't know what age I realized it, but eventually I realized that people performed for a living. People got to sing and dance and act and that was what they did for a living. I was probably 12 and immediately got my Mom to let me go to EL rec department acting camp. And I loved it. I was the oldest kid there and immediately ALPHA femaled the whole thing. We wrote, acted, costumed, created the whole thing. The play was called "What's Missing in Valerie's Gallery?" and I was Valerie, of course. We ripped the whole thing off of Clue, but I was hooked. I loved every moment. I loved rehearsal and more than anything I loved being on stage. I kept going, there was no drama in Middle School. So in High School I went out for every play offered and got nice quiet background roles for the most part. I got to play King Alonzo in Tempest and that was the pinnacle of that. In college, I decided that I was not going to be a theater major and just dumped myself in education. Don't get me wrong, I love education. I love teaching, but I see something silly, like concert footage with backstage peeks. I see a play. I see some kind of performing and a part of me aches. I want that. I want that so badly. I want to sing, I want to act, I want to be up there, doing it, for real. Doing Godspell this past winter was the closest I've ever come to that real moment. Singing my solo was the most unbelieveable experience I've ever had. It's over now and I'm forever grateful for the opportunity. And I want it again so badly. I cannot wait to be up there again.

I wish I could be brave. I have a friend who has thrown away the life I lead now to try and follow her passion. Some find it laughable and shake their head in discuss. She'll never amount to anything, they say. But she is doing it and I know she is happy. She is dramatic and kinda insane but right now I look at her and think, wow... someone is actually doing that. I wish I could, I wish I had faith, I wish I could be doing that.

Now the sensible part of me says, you have to be responsible and keep the job and just do the theater and singing on the side and that I will do. But watching and seeing it elsewhere a part of me says, what if?