Real People

I went to see a show the other night with my friend W and it restored a lot of the goodness to my life.

The show, Eastland, was absolutely fantastic.  It will sound as if I am exaggerating to say I wept for the last twenty minutes of it, but I did, big, uncontrollable shoulder-heaving sobbing right there in the second row.  I couldn't hide and I couldn't stop.  It's a folk musical, the music is unbearably lovely, and the story is about a 1915 tragedy that killed upwards of 800 people in a day.  A boat turned over on its side in a river within a few feet of shore, and before everything got sorted out 800+ were dead.  It's horrifying, to say the least.  So I knew going in that I might end up weeping.  After an hour or so of just holding my mouth shut the way you do when you're choked up, I thought, ok, this is sad, but I can keep it together.  Then something happened in the show that completely broke me open, and I was a weeping mess for the rest of it.

Which I don't mind, really.  Yes, I am relatively embarrassed to be seen in semi-public crying, but it was a terrifically moving show, and I enjoy that I can allow myself to be moved by what I experience.

Then I sat around for three hours and chatted about everything and nothing with a friend I adore.  It was surprisingly easy to forget about all the things that make me feel discontented.  It was surprisingly easy to be happy that my friend had been called back for a play I'd hoped to be called back for as well.  I wasn't called back, but again, I adore my friend, she's funny and genuine and a kick-ass actress that I love seeing in shows.

Maybe I'm not a completely contemptible human being.  Though I must say others might disagree.  Another day I'll write about my recurring dream of running into a woman who asks me to stay away from her husband but I don't know who her husband is.  Heh.  Someone in my psyche clearly has a distaste for me.  Wonder who it is.