Late Nights

Uh-oh...it's one of those all-to-common nights where I am working all night long. I'm sitting at my computer right now just waiting for the rest of the theatre staff to go home so that I can begin the long process of setting lights for tomorrow night's show. Unfortunately, I also am judging a music competition starting at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning, so I have to have the whole show prepared by 7 o'clock....hence the all nighter. :( All nighters also tend to get me thinking....tonight I am thinking, where am I going?
In just under three months, I will be making one of the biggest changes of my life up to this point. I will be moving 24 hours away from my family and settling down in a city where I do not have a job and know exactly 3 people! Sure, I have great references...but who can guarantee I'll find a job. What was I thinking?? I currently have a wonderful job that I LOVE and pays great....why am I giving that up to go someplace where I may not find a job. My boss likes to bring that up every once in a while too... As I keep assuring myself, if I wasn't supposed to go, the Lord would have said "No." But what if He just didn't....what if this is the biggest mistake of my life? What if I get out there and I'm miserable? What if life doesn't turn out the way that I plan? God, is this You....or am I just screwing up again?

Told ya....all-nighters are dangerous for me....

Next to Normal

This past weekend, I had the privilege of being involved in an absolutely fabulous production at The Lyric Theatre called "Next to Normal." Although a Broadway musical, it wasn't your typical shallow, make people feel good show. This was a deeply probing show about the effects of mental illness on families. After four performances, I still couldn't get through it without crying. The way in which all the characters in the show misunderstood the anguish the main character was going through was like looking at most of the people I knew in my life before I found my true passion.
For so many people (myself included), life is much more pain than pleasure. The pain of true love lost; the pain of crushed dreams; the pain of unachieved goals; the pain of broken trust; and the list could go on and on...
The lyrics of one of the songs in the show described me better than I could ever hope to be able to....

When the world that once had color fades to white and gray and black.
When tomorrow terrifies you, but you'll die if you look back.
You don't know.
I know you don't know.
You say that you're hurting, it sure doesn't show.
You don't know.
You tell me let go.
And you may say so, but I say you don't know.

The sensation that you're screaming, but you never make a sound.
Or the feeling that you're falling, but you never hit the ground.
It just keeps on rushing at you day by day by day by day.
You don't know, you don't know what it's like to live that way.
Like a refugee, a fugitive, forever on the run.
If it gets me it will kill me, but I don't know what I've done.

But at the same time as all of these feelings, the truth remains that (as the show concludes) there will always be a place where light exists.....