Hi my name is Dinah, I'm the dining car, I'll cook for you and listen while you lean upon my bar....

Listen. It's been a whirlwind month, and a CRAZY 10 days. In 4 weeks, I have learned to Roller Skate, rehearsed, opened, and closed an entire show, and said goodbye to parents whom I hadn't seen in a while. WHAT! I'm sad, and I'm mopey, and I'm exhausted. I miss these people. I miss roller skating, and I miss laughing with them. Here are some pictures to prove that the madness was real, along with a potentially sappy post. I can feel the sap rising already.

Double chin, anyone?

The story goes like this:

About a month ago, I got a phone call out of the blue and was given the chance to take the role of Dinah in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Starlight Express" at the California Theater. I had never even heard of the show, and managed to lie my way into the cast, somehow convincing the artistic team that I could actually roller skate. What I didn't know was that I would learn some of the most valuable lessons as well as meet some of the most beautiful people I have ever had the privilege of working with.

It's like God knew that I needed to be in contact with these people. It's like He knew I was hoping for something artistically challenging, for something that would light up that spark in me that had been slowly dying away. It's like He knew that I needed to be reminded how to laugh and smile.

Of course He knew. Duh.

It's been three days since we've closed and since I've seen anybody from the cast. I was lucky enough to meet up with Craig tonight for "drive-by hugging" as we now call it, and I find myself still pondering and reminiscing on the friendships that I've made and the lessons that I felt and learned during that whole process. I'm worried that if I don't write it down somewhere, I'll slowly forget. And I don't want that. If I were more of an adult, I'd probably just call each person that I'm about to talk about and express to them the impact that they had. But I'm kind of a pansy.

I had a BLAST working this group of people, but this production was no walk-in-the-park. From my first day in (3.5 weeks after the cast originally started rehearsing--I was a replacement, FYI) things seemed jumbled and confusing. Schedules weren't solidified, expectations were not clear, and details were a thing of little importance. This all completely blew my mind, and things were FAR from smooth for a loooong time. As a recovering-perfectionist, this was hard for me to understand. I was incredibly frustrated, and felt like I was being asked to succeed for somebody without being given the tools to do so. This is where my first lesson came:

LESSON 1: An attitude is NEVER an acceptable form of action, and kindness can/should always prevail.
Obviously, there are exceptions to every rule, but those exceptions are very few and far-between. I learned this lesson the hard way. I spent a good weekend crying over this lesson, much to my chagrin. Which brings me to...

LESSON 2: Not everybody will like you. 
I've heard this my entire life, this is not news. But there has always been a tiny, tiny ignorant part of me that would think "Well, sure, but not me. I can make everybody like me." And.....that's simply not true. No matter how true I wish it were, it just.....isn't. And it never will be. I also learned this lesson the hard way, and shed far too many tears over this one. (I know--"how naive can you get, Kelly?!")

LESSON 3: IT'S OK that there are people who don't like you.
People clash. It's human nature. If we were all the same, life would be soooo boring. Our differences are so exciting and beautiful. But occasionally, there will be people that you won't mesh with. And THAT'S OK. It's ok! It's ok. But Lesson 3 is only ok as long as Lesson 1 remains in practice.

LESSON 4: Apologies can go a long way.
I read a study once that said that the majority of people would rather be right than have peace. What a bizarre and unfortunate truth. I have always felt like people don't apologize enough. I was once told that I apologize too much and that it wasn't attractive. *shrugs* I probably won't stop apologizing if I feel an apology will help somebody feel better, or if it will remedy a situation (even in those rare cases where I feel that I'm in the right--see? The concept of being "right" is just so tempting.) But a humble and heartfelt apology can really go a long way. Try it.

LESSON 5: Be open.
This isn't a new lesson, rather, something I have consciously tried to do for years--but it was a good reminder. Just....be. Be open! Open to what? Anything. Everything. As a base, I believe it is really important (and I can't stress this enough in life) to find something that you truly believe in, and hold onto it with your whole heart. Fight for it. Believe it. Live it. Do what you need to do with it. For me, that is Mormonism. I find a lot of peace and happiness in it. For others, it is something completely different. What I love about that idea, is that we can share views and opinions, pick and choose what we agree or disagree on, and take whatever we want from them and apply it to ourselves to improve upon our current happiness. I think it's just wonderful. Be open to what others think, say, believe and live by. Observe how they act. Right, wrong, it doesn't matter. Just listen, and you'll learn something that you didn't know you needed to learn.

Lame lessons? Maybe.

Maybe not.

What I love about the theater is how quickly you can become intimate with your fellow cast mates. There are walls and emotional barriers that are quickly broken because of the nature of the job. In this  specific show, there were four people who left little handprints on my heart. My original intent of this post was to write about these four wonderful people, but....I can't. I wish I could tell each of them that I love them, and how I love them. I wish I could tell each of them what I love about them, and why I think they are so wonderful. I wish I were brave enough to just say it to their faces, but.....I'm not.

I don't have a graceful ending to this.