Current mood: contemplative
Category: Life
You know, they always say that high school should be some of the best years of your young life. Yes, "They", the unnamed them who always have a lot to say, but are never really nice enough to sign their name at the bottom of the page.
There are definitely things I miss from high school, but I won't bore you with a list. The one thing I really miss the most is the stage. I've been singing since I was a little girl, and from the time I first got into school, I adored being up on stage. I remember back in elementary school, I was ecstatic to get the role of Narrator for the Christmas play one year. NARRATOR.
After that, for nine years in school, I was in choir. And every time I'd go to get up onstage and sing, solo or with the group, it felt like the first time, and the butterflies would just go, and I would be a complete mess before we went on. And then.... we would go on, and I always remember walking out onto the stage and leaving the butterflies behind.
If you knew me at the time, or even now, you'd realize why I laugh at that. Ordinarily, I'm a quiet person, shy, reserved by nature. That's just the way I have always been. The overachiever, the bookworm, the one that does a LOT of listening, and works her butt off to get her work done.
And yet, there it was, and I think that's partly why I always have loved the stage so much-- because I could get up there, and let go, and just be me for a change. I could be completely different up there than I was offstage, and I loved how I felt up there. It felt good to be up there, to have the lights on and the people all watching me for once, when ordinarily I'm the one who's content to hang around the back, out of the spotlight.
I think it culminated my senior year, at Granite. The most fun I'd ever had on the stage.
My choir teacher had said that there was an open slot in the show, and I think it was the piano player for the choir that first suggested that I get up and sing one of my own (A song I had written that year), using a background I'd put together on a tape, from a drum machine. Not exactly grammy material, but I didn't care.
It was the first time I'd ever sung one of my own to a group larger than just a few of my friends, so basically I was scared to DEATH, and I loved every minute of it.
I'd asked my teacher if I could use a wireless mic, and planned it all out the day of the performance, how I would go about the whole thing.
I remember how nervous I was that night, and how one of my friends brought a really cool shirt for me to wear (It was a silky material, gray/blue snake skin print, with the lower half of the back open, with straps that criss crossed it, I've looked for one like it ever since) , my cousin Julie loaned me her black pants-- I'll never forget that Juge :-) , and a few of my friends did my hair. (I think they were excited to see me in something other than the tshirts and jeans I usually wore.)
That night, I sang with the background I'd written and walked through the audience as I sang, moving up and down the aisles, and I couldn't help laughing when they started clapping along. I think I might have invented a new shade of red.
I've never felt another thing like it-- that adrenaline, you know? Nothing else comes close to that rush for me, and I miss it.
