I've fought with myself about writing this for long enough. So here I am.
copsunited blogged one of his memories and asked for something beautiful of ours. I wrote my memory of my first performance in a play. It was like being there again. My heart racing, my hands trembling, my mind and body humming with excitement and adrenaline. It is like that every time. Every play. Every performance.
But the memory is bittersweet. The feeling of completeness. Of wholeness. Of understanding for the first time in your life that THIS is what God gave you this talent for and that THIS is what you should be doing in life. After all those years of being told that acting/singing was a waste of time and I'd never amount to anything doing it. That a talent for acting is foolish and isn't something normal people do for a living. I felt for so long that somehow God must have made some sort of mistake to give me this bizarre gift that was so useless. And then to find out that it was all a lie. The it wasn't a mistake. That there really was a place in the world for me with my talents.
I guess many would say that it's my fault that I can no longer be a part of this troupe. Sadly, I was suckered into a(nother) abusive relationship with my counterpart in the last play. Yes, it is my fault that I "fell in love" with someone other than my then-husband. Or rather, obessession. At that time, my self esteem was lower than low. I hated my body (and it was far skinnier and better looking than now!) and I thought that even if I was somewhat pretty on the outside, I sure was ugly on the inside. So ugly, no one who ever saw the real me could ever really love me. Oh, I put on a good front. Nobody knew.
Anyways, to cut it short, a close woman friend whom I thought I could trust, went immediately to the pastor of my then church and told him about me and him. We hadn't slept together or anything but we were flirting towards it, I guess you could say. Needless to say, I was shocked, devastated beyond belief, betrayed, angry that I had allowed myself to trust another woman (I usually don't make friends with women easily - I'm not very trusting from past experiences before this one). When he called me in to talk to me, he treated me like an errant child. He misunderstood my grief and anger. He talked to me like I had split personality disorder. I played along but I despised him for it. Who did he think he was trying to play with my mind??? In the course of his lecture, he banned me from playing/singing in my band, playing/singing on the worship team (even tho there were those who weren't even practicing 'christians' in it!), and, worst of all, NO MORE PLAYS. Ever.
I had just walked from the end of the provincial park to the church to hear that. A good 7 kms in freezing wind and the beginnings of snow in nothing but a coat. I had slipped and slid my way down the side of the embankment to get to the lake. It was just starting to freeze along the edges for the winter. I don't know how long I stared at the water, touched the ice, dove my hand under the numbing cold and thought about how easy it would be to wade in until I was too cold to swim back. The pain in my heart was so great, I thought that I might shatter into a thousand pieces of broken mirrored glass. I couldn't understand how I could end up in this same position as I had been the first time, when I left my first husband. How could I destroy my whole entire life? How could I be as obssessively in "love" with someone else when I'd felt sure that I'd die without my husband when I was first with him? What was wrong with me? (I have figured these things out, BTW.)
But I forced myself to go back up that steep bank and trudge on, so cold inside and out. I found a fishhook along the banks and scratched it into the back of my hand. I wanted to see if I really had blood. Perhaps it was that I was so very cold that no blood seeped from the wound. It's white mark remains on my hand today. Small and faded, but I see it. By the time I reached the church, I was exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I didn't think anything else could hurt me. Until he said that.
I try not to think about it anymore. Today brought it up. When our little local paper talks of the next play the troupe is doing, it stabs like the shard of magic mirror in little Kay's heart in The Snow Queen. I become sad and angry at little things. I cry for no reason. I get depressed for those couple of days that I would have been performing had I been a part of it.
I miss my plays. Kind of like a phantom limb has pain, so my amputated acting twinges with pain at those certain times. He took something that he had no right to take. But because that troupe is considered a part of the church (though it isn't really. It's not even owned by the church. It's a non-profit organization of which I am on it board for!!!), they will not go against him to allow me to be a part of it anymore.
In this small town, there are no other opportunities that I am aware of for me to be a part of a troupe. I have decided, however, that somewhere I will find another group and I will start acting again. He can't stop me. It's only a matter of time...
