New plan for rehearsals: since trying to be confidant and funny isn't working (like at all), I'm just going to sit with James, give him a pat now and again, and read my lines. I'm going to work hard to make this role the best I can make it, because Beatrice deserves it, and so does this show. If my social graces are lacking--and they always are, unless someone goes on slow motion to smile at me and tolerate awhile--then I will redouble my efforts. Even though it hurts to notice how quiet applause might be for me or how horribly I butcher situations I mean to be happy, even though it hurts, I will not.... fight it. I will.. accept. I will smile.
For seven years, I've believed that I'm alone. Not because there weren't people, but because I thought there weren't humans. I thought Empathy had died a long time ago, that Chivalry had died with it, and that Chaos was sipping out of fine martini glasses on a throne made from their corpses.
For a longer time than seven, I really believed I could overturn that rule, but the more plays I'm involved in, the more I feel useless... too big or too small.... trying too hard or not enough.... but I love those people. I love those people so much; I love just being spoken to. I love hearing the sound of my voice with someone else's, rather than me just humming nervously in the halls because I'm worried I'm going mute, I haven't checked for hours. Even when I'm daydreaming, I always start those daydreams alone.
I'm done trying to fight it. High school and middle school were made to flatten us against a wall, to show us nobody can win. And they're right: we can't win the war against high school injustices, but we most certainly can win the war against adults. Because until now, what I've negated to realize about myself is that I have been winning.
I HAVE been winning. I became exactly who I've always wanted to be: gentle, and decent, and good, and occasionally decadent or clever, and mostly graceful.... I know where Magic is. Magic is in believing, and that belief can save lives, and I know it. I know it in my heart. I know the hearts of everyone, too. I'll give them anything they want from me, and let that be my weakness large.
Let my faults come from loving too much, rather than loving not enough. Let it come from listening too much instead of not at all. Let trying too hard and fucking it up be worth more to me than not trying at all... let me give up a passive resistance to the fear of my somehow civil disobedience.
The next time somebody snickers at me for walking as though I don't wear shoes with my head in the clouds and they shoot me a bullet, let me take it to the chest. What bullet of insolence can scar a worthy heart? I will walk away and, rather than imagining myself to be what they wanted: Beautiful (but arrogant for that beauty), snarky (and lacking civility by that acceptance), and cruel (and using the love to end itself)--let me be instead who I am now. Let me walk away thinking, "I am a lady. I hold my heart like gold, but yours like oil; with prices always on the rise." The next time somebody trips me, let me turn to them and say, "I love you, and no matter how cruel you are to me, I'd do anything to help you."
Let them laugh. Let them stare. I'll pick up my hum and keep walking....
Of course, this revelation is temporary. But I'm going to try to make it less so this time; I really am. I want to be all right with myself. I want to take confidence in the fact that I'm different from them all, that I really am the hero I've always wanted to be....
But I know it'll still hurt when the laugh, and they do.
They always laugh.
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