Exhale.

I don't want to glamourize smoking or anything, but it felt soooooo good to have a cigarette this evening.  I've never been addicted or a regular smoker, so when I do drag I get light-headed and euphoric.  What a way to end a shift.

Grant.

I found out several weeks ago that a guy I went to school with in high school died.  Suddenly.  A brain aneurism, I think.  Point being he was much too young.  He was only a year older than I am.  At the time I just acquired the knowledge and that was that.

But last night I dreamt about him. 

Vividly.

I pulled memories out that I had forgotten.  My personal interactions with him.  Like how he was Marius in Les Mis, opposite Whitney's Cosette.  And how there was one day of rehearsal that Whitney couldn't make, and we would be rehearsing "The Kissing Scene".  I was excited and nervous because he was so cute; who wouldn't crush on him.  And as I was running up the stairs in the scene, Mrs. G. yelled out "Don't kiss." so I didn't.  (But wanted to as myself as well as the character.)

And how we sang "All I Ask of You" in voice lessons, preparing it for a possible concert.  I had butterflies of course.

His dad was even in my dream . . . and I thanked him for being so involved and building us such wonderful sets.

It was like unconscious catharsis.  The dream was as real as any actual occurence because it could have been real.  There were nothing to conotate that it was a dream except that I woke up from it.

So I will take it as real.  And I will take those tears as my mourning.

Shoes.

By my front door there is The Plop.  In The Plop zone is all the various articles I need from day to day.  My purse, my keys, my bag for work, my bag for work, my bag for play.  I'm stretched so thin I can scarcely keep track of myself from one moment to the next.  Stability is tangible, but I feel it could fly at any moment.

So I ground myself in my shoes.

Who am I?  If I look to my shoes, they tell me.  At this moment, I am a receptionist.

Who am I?  Millicent, the character I've created.

Who am I?  A waitress.

Am I barefoot?  Then I can breathe until I am myself in a role again.

{"Shoe Pile" by fuzyblucaterpilr, DeviantArt}

But really, am I not just a series of performances?