No, I’m not leaving. Please keep reading. Never judge a headline by its cover, which is sound advice for all forms of writing.
Earlier this week, for whatever random reason (seriously, I don’t remember what prompted it), I started to reminisce about acting in the school plays during my high school years.
It had been a long time since I thought about how fun those times were and also how many opportunities there were back then to act in this skit and that for other classes, not just as an extra-curricular.
I didn’t realize how much of an “acting career” I had during grades nine through 12.
Now, the closest thing I do to acting is when new employees get introduced here at the offices and I need to snap into a mindset of “be social and friendly” versus “work, focused on work, staring at the computer screen, why am I always losing my pens?, when am I going to get this page done?, and so on”.
Back to the remembering. I was recalling my fellow cast members and crew members and how enjoyable it was to be in a group like that for those months before the performances went by in the blink of an eye.
I thought especially happily about my senior year in which I got very close to the cast members who were in my particular segment of the production (it was a presentation of four short plays).
Most of the people in it were fellow seniors of mine and we hung out together a lot away from the auditorium.
With a combination of guilt and laughter, I also thought about how I (arrogantly) thought my role was too boring so I (with my co-stars’ full cooperation) ad-libbed some lines and actions to make what I was doing on stage more interesting.
I feel a little bad now — thinking I wouldn’t tolerate such immaturity if I was the adult in charge — but our director was cool about it.
It was a special time.
Keeping the lights on
Something else I remembered from those days was a little more sentimental and emotional.
At about 2 a.m. the night of the wrap party (don’t worry, it wasn’t that wild, there was plenty of adult supervision), I was sitting in my bedroom with the radio on and kind of sad.
It was over. My time with these people was over. Yes, we would see each other, but we could never replicate the full experience.
Of course, even more so for some of us, we were months away from all heading off our separate ways to college so seeing each other may happen less and less.
As if it was a gift, the oldies radio station (even back then I wasn’t listening to anything modern), started playing a song I had never heard before, but the lyrics grabbed me.
Part of them were “ . . . goodbye doesn’t mean forever, let me tell you goodbye doesn’t mean we’ll never be together again . . .”
That’s what I needed to hear.
It wasn’t over. We’d see each other again. We’d be together again. We’d be friends for life.
After hearing the Bread guy’s song, I felt better about everything.
Yeah, about that.
The lights do have to go out
Fast forward to 2024. Guess what. I haven’t seen, much less talked to, anyone from that play in a very long time.
What was a consolation in the spring of 2002 turned out to be temporary.
More than 20 years later, I’m OK with that, and not in a bad way.
How many of us have had people in our lives that we took for granted would always be there?
Time truly waits for no one and sometimes we move on to the next thing and sometimes they do.
God had plans and paths for each of us. Sometimes we’re blessed to have our paths intersect with other very wonderful people, and sometimes we go in different directions after a time.
That’s alright. I’m really not a “be thankful for the time we had instead of the time we lost,” or whatever it is, kind of person, but it’s something to ponder.
What right do we have to think someone is going to be in our lives forever?
If we drift apart or lose touch with someone, maybe that’s best for them, not in a bad way.
They have their mission and I have mine.
We can always pray for those we miss, even if we never see them again.
To the cast of “The Ugly Duckling” (no, I wasn’t “ugly” or a duck) who probably will never read this, know that I’m thinking about you, I’m glad we shared that time together, and I hope we’re all doing well in our early 40s or almost there.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.