This one time, I started losing my mind...

It had been over a week since I had slept soundly through the night when I woke up one morning and couldn't remember how or when I'd fallen asleep at all. In fact, I was fairly certain I must have fallen asleep mid-conversation as I remembered being awake, lights-on, talking to J Word, and the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off, and I was groggily fumbling in the dark for the snooze button.

This was both disorienting and a bit of relief. I have not slept well in the run-up to the musical because the musical has left me with far more on my mind than I am able to shutdown at night, and so my thoughts race through those things that I haven't been able to deal with during the day. The power going out (and thus eliminating the possibility of our much need tech rehearsal) on Saturday, did little to help me unwind over the weekend, and our 7 hour replacement rehearsal on Monday during the school day, was not exactly the nerve soother I would have hoped for. I have been woken repeatedly by nightmares ranging from bad things happening on stage, to bad things happening in life in general. I've been exhausted for days.

So the fact that I had fallen asleep without even recognizing it, and stayed asleep long enough that I was confused in the morning as to how it had all happened, meant one of two things. Either 1. Things had started to go well enough that my body finally let itself relax, or 2. I had finally lost my mind, reached the point of physical exhaustion, and had gone into self preservation mode. Actually, both options probably hold an element of truth! The show is better...not great...but better; but regardless of how things go, I'm also not sure I could have made it on many more nights of limited sleep.

Time gives perspective to all things, and there will come a time in the future that I will look back on Honk! as the little show that could...almost didn't...but then could again. There will come a time when I'm home before 9pm, in bed and sleeping soundly without nightmares of scene changes and show disasters. Moving forward, I know what I'd change, what I'll do differently next time, and what things are going to always be variables when directing high school theatre. I also know who stands in my corner, who's willing to step up to the plate, who's always going to have my back. These are important lessons, lessons I know linger amid the chaos of everything that the last two weeks have been, and, in time, will come to mean much more than mere "silver lining" afterthoughts of an otherwise challenging stretch.

Honk! If you love theatre. Honk! If you're ready to watch someone else perform it for a while, from a seat other than the director's!

Happy Trails,