A Lesson Learned

Before we get to that - Garry and a friend of his moved our filing cabinet in our office yesterday. I'm super excited about it! At some point (when I'm not painting all the things) I'll get around to organizing all of our paperwork and maybe even decorating that wall of the room. (Which will invovle getting the sewing machine down and rummaging through my fabric - maybe even some crafts!)

Also, I've learned something today. Watching/listening to the full theatrical version of Les Miserables on You Tube at work while I'm... um... "hormonal" is probably a bad idea. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Les Mis, it's easily my favorite musical of all time, however there are multiple parts in the production that I will cry my eyes out over. Yes, I've seen/listened to it a million times. No, that doesn't make it any different. The way the musical is written, and how some of the characters are so relatable... well at least for me.

When I was in high school there was a boy I was desperately, almost painfully, in love with. One reason or another it just wasn't going to happen, but we were very close friends. There was always a part of me that thought, maybe... just maybe... despite knowing that it would never happen or be a good idea.

I could get into more of it, but you get the idea.

After I saw Les Mis the first time I completely and entirely resonated with Eponine. It felt like looking in a mirror. That yes, I'd be that girl to run across a war zone to deliver a note to a girl from guy I was hopelessly in love with - without a care if I died or not - and just be thrilled that in that moment of death that he finally noticed.

So... feeling the way I did, and of course, being a desperately-in-love, 16-year-old Leo, with a Scorpio moon (my poor mother) I did the only thing that would come naturally to me - theatre. We had a "coffee house" once a month at my high school and I decided that I was going to sing "On My Own." I didn't tell anyone why - because that would have been really embarrassing - even though the entire universe knew how I felt already. He had graduated the spring prior and went away to college, so he wasn't around to see it. Thankfully so. I know if he had, well, that just would've made things more awkward than it needed to be.

And I sang my heart out. It was the first time that anyone in the school heard my sing completely by myself (even though I was in choir for years) and to really "let" myself sing with all of those emotions that were normally just chaos running through me.

So I "got it." Every time I hear the song I think about that very informal, fleeting performance, the way I felt, and how so much has changed since then.

It took a long time to get over it. Longer than I'd really like to admit. The falling out we had years ago is still painful, and there is a part of me that wonders if that wound will ever heal, or if I keep it open to remind myself what can happen if I let my imagination run away with itself.

But now, I'm no longer the lonely girl chasing after an impossible love. I don't feel like I need to cross war zones just to be noticed. I've got it good, and I know that because of the past. And you know what, I'm incredibly thankful for it.