Sleepless Long Nights.

When I am stage managing, I am in control. I am living and breathing and thriving on the order that I have created. I run 30mph faster than even the greatest mistakes that the production will face to ensure that everything is under control. I am my own maestro, in a way, controlling the pace and ebb and flow of rehearsal with the flick of my Timex. It's this dazzling light scape with blinking stars and soaring comets and halos around the moon that I know, every complicated event, like the back of my hand. In those moments, I revel in the beauty of complexity and flourish due to my understanding of it all.

When I am living, however, lying underneath the stars, taking a long stroll, Easter egg hunting, those are the moments I am in limbo. I am swayed by the chill in the air, the smell of fresh cut grass, the prospect of finding something no one else has. So I walk into all of this without my notes and without my rehearsal reports and I am just expected to live. I must sit and watch the blinking stars, the real soaring comets, the real halos and question them. I'm constantly questioning and awaiting answers and being forced, due to my impatience, to fantasize and create reasons.

But perhaps, I grow as much from the moments when I am flailing, grasping for some semblance of control and subject to the time schedule of God and other human beings, as I do from the time I spend in charge. This week has been the 'Week of Wins'...and it has lived up to its name thus far. The very point of this week is to win at life and schedule our lives to experience life without a schedule.

And right now, at this point in my life, I can appreciate the beauty and wonder of questioning and living in limbo because of the amazing people who have helped me realize that I am Allie beyond the Stage Manager. It's scary to be standing at the threshold of your life and find ourself losing footing. It requires some of the most beautiful human beings on this planet to hold your hand and tell you that that'll love you for who you were and who you are about to become. It's those beautiful people that you have the best nights of your college life with and who have a hand in changing you for the better for the rest of your life. It really is difficult for us, as humans, to tell each other we love or care for one another. So the most amazing thing that can happen is when those words can remain unspoken and you know that forever, through whatever, this love, this comfort item, this best friend, will always be there for you.

I had some metaphor about potted plants that I had here earlier but I think what I just wrote is perhaps the best note I will ever be able to leave an entry on. The voice in my head is saying: Quit while you're ahead, sweetie.