I can easily recall every miniscule detail of my first show
Just as if it may have only happened a day or two ago.
And as I reminisce, the scene plays over in my head.
I see a little girl.
She stands waiting back stage.
Only ten years old.
And, even in this scalding August air,
she feels far too cold.
Her stomach churns and her limbs grow numb as she thinks of only the worst.
She imagines herself forgetting her lines and also singing the wrong words.
She worries that she might mess up the dances or that her costume will rip.
Or even worse, what if while on stage, she were to fall down or trip!
Would the people laugh?
Would she begin to cry?
And with this fear, a warm tear rolls from her eye.
She’s not the lead,
she has only two handfuls of lines.
But, still-
She just wants the people to like her.
She wants to make her audience laugh when appropriate
And to make them cry when the situation calls for it.
She wants to be the best they’ve ever seen,
even if she isn’t always noticed.
So, with a new feeling of purpose,
she dismisses her fears,
she wipes off her tears
and she goes on.
And soon after, as she fell hopelessly in love with acting,
she realized why she was there in the first place.
And, to this day,
I can still remember what that little girl realized on stage that warm August night.
That acting is about the feeling; the emotion-
Inside my head and heart to feel that commotion
of all the different thoughts spiraling around and around
and with this dizziness I feel like I might hit the ground,
but I don’t.
I never do.
Instead, I soar.
I’m lifted high above the world I know.
And my own imagination is the only possible restriction to where I may go.