2001-02-21 - 21:39:31

Ahhh the theatre....

Put me in the audience, dim the lights, start the music...nothing else exists.

There's no one else there. There's no pain, there's no bad thought, all the people and things that have hurt me in life evaporate into non-existence. There's only me, the stage, the orchestra and an experience.

At the theatre I'm truly transfixed. I'm truly home and I'm truly happy.

I'll always spite god for giving me the heart of a true thespian but neither the voice nor the talent to do anything about it. Not that I'm totally lacking talent in that area...I can sing reasonably well and I've got musical talent oozing out my ears. I can act as well as any aspiring high school kiddo on the stage...but I don't have what it takes to make it professionally.

So last night...when I thought my life was crashing down. I've spent the last weeks muddling through a deep depression..grumping about the things going wrong. Last night...the Phantom transfixed me in his music and for several hours I escaped every bit of that.

I know every word, every note of that show. I know it in my head, in my heart and my soul. To lose myself in it was an utter delight. Its better than sex, its better than a warm summer day at the cabin...its better than most anything I know. In that audience my heart sours to amazing heights with the music, my tears flow and I live another life.

So mom just called. She's happy that I'm in a good mood. She sounds rather rejuvinated herself. I tell her I'm writing in my journal about the theatre. Shit...wrong topic of conversation. Gripe 1.) she doesn't understand this online journaling thing...how can you share your thoughts and feelings and deepest secrets with a potential audience of millions. Perhaps its like Shakespeare says...I'm a closet exhibitionist. I don't know. Somewhere in me I like the idea and I'm loving writing here. Gripe 2.) You had the talent. You HAVE the talent. You choose not to employ it.

So that brings me to a whole new world. If I so love the theatre...if it makes my heart soar and can destroy even the worst of moods...why don't I train and work and make it my life?

I'm chicken shit.

I'm scared that something I love so much could be taken away by making it the every day monotony. I'm scared that I'd fail. I'm scared of really confirming that I might never have had what it took to make it. I'm scared of making music my captor and my jail instead of my joy.

Way back in the days of high school music was my life. The piano was my first instrument. I trained since I was 7. My father brought home this beautiful upright. She was gorgeous. She is gorgeous and she still graces that same corner of my parents living room. I love her...I visited her last weekend. I loved the piano. I loved music.

4th grade..I couldn't wait until they let us into band. I took up the clarinet in the great tradition of my family. I loved it. I sang in the chorus, played in the band and excelled in my music classes. I'd found my place.

Middle school..piano and clarinet = life. I was in every chorus, every band possible. It became my identity. Music became the triumph of the pathetic fat kid. I couldn't be the smartest, I couldn't be the prettiest or the most athletic...so I was the most musical.

High school...the competitive edge..the urge..the need to define myself as the best at something compelled me forward in music. I expanded my repetoire...the flute, the saxaphone. Fourth in the state on clarinet. The jazz band..the bit band the youth symphony. Every night every day an endless run of lessons and rehersals.

I was tired. As high school days ended and my last performances drew to a close I left it all behind. In my urge to make my place, to prove myself, to be the best. Music lost everything. It lost the joy it had in my youngest days. It lost the fun. It was a chore...a bore.

So I left it all behind. Pre-med, computer science. Anything but music. Now its a love...a complement to my life.