Starting senior year

It’s taken me a very long time to get to writing this entry.  Probably because there are some tough things going on which are manageable as long as they’re not quite real, and putting them down this way in writing makes them no longer ignorable.  Don’t worry, I’m fine, so much better than I was this summer…I was worried that coming back to school wouldn’t actually fix anything, but no fear, I am generally quite happy.  Our show went well, although it wasn’t always easy…it was hard on Brendan to do Peter’s show without him, and it made his death real in a way that it hadn’t quite been before.  Sometimes I worry because I think he is not grieving enough.  Sometimes I worry because I think he is grieving too much.  It is…sporadic.  And intense.

My classes are good.  All of them.  This is unheard of.  I love it.  I’m taking 4.5 dance classes.  Well, Ballet III, Tap III, Styles, the barre of Ballet II two days a week, and Advanced Movement, which isn’t exactly a dance class but is most easily classified as such I guess.  And they’re all great.  Movement is especially wonderful at times…when we do partner work.  I think I just like touching people.  No, it’s more than that…I like taking people’s weight and having them take mine, finding a new centre of balance that incorporates another person, leaning into each other and finding the strength that comes of trust.  That is what I like, and why I like partnering in Movement.  Styles isn’t killing me to death, as I had thought it would, and that’s all I can ask of it.  It’s tough, but that’s what it’s for — apparently this class is hard even for people who are actually dancers, which I am not.  So I guess I’m almost holding my own, and that’s pretty good.  Tap is tap, love it.  Parker and I are tap buddies — we meet outside of class and practice combinations and work on pullbacks.  It is excellent.  Ballet is as ever, hard and beautiful and frustrating and seductive.  I love taking the extra classes.  It makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something, like I’m serious about dance.  And because I’m doing the extra hours, my teacher, Karen, treats me as though I am extra serious about ballet, which is wonderful because it means I get more corrections and also more praise.

I am also taking Musical Theatre Scene Study, which is truly excellent.  The class is small, and I am the only senior.  The teacher is new, named Nathan, and he is perhaps more inclined to direct us than to teach, but I think I am learning anyway.  My first scene was Chris and Ellen from the end of Miss Saigon, with a junior named Chris who I hadn’t really known before, and it went so well and was so much fun.  It’s a really intense scene, and I love working on that stuff, so naturally I enjoyed myself.  But we worked once in class — twice sort of, we got half-way through the scene and then ran out of time, so we finished it the next class, today — and were told that we’d done excellent work and the scene was done, find a new one.  We were the first to finish a scene.  The only ones to finish it in one go.  I was very proud and excited.  The extra-wonderful thing for me was that, in rehearsing with Chris, I discovered that I actually know how to structure a scene, how to work trouble spots, and so forth.  Chris doesn’t yet, but I do, and this was cause for great joy — I have learned something.  I can go out into the world and know how to put together good work.  This is incredibly wonderful to know.

I don’t really want to write at length about the troubling things just now.  This weekend I went to visit Katie for the first time since we graduated high school, and it was truly fantastic to see her.  We had a wonderful time and we went into the City and saw The History Boys, which reminded me all over again why I act, why I will always act, why I can’t not act.  I wish it weren’t closing, so I could go back and see it again.  I also got to introduce Katie to Justin and Danny, and Rollie incidentally.  That was nice.  Wonderful, of course, to see Danny.  I miss him.

Sometimes it’s hard not to be in London anymore.  In fact, often.  I  miss it badly.  All of it.  I really might have to go back there after graduation.  I don’t know if there is any other city in which I will be so happy.  New York, possibly, because of all my friends who will be there, and it’s quite similar to London in some ways anyway.  But walking out of the show and knowing that I didn’t have to cross the Thames to get home…there was no river to cross, with double-decker buses passing by and the Eye reflected in the water…it was unexpectedly hard.  I miss London.

Brendan talked me into auditioning for The Rocky Horror Show, in which I have been cast as the Narrator.  That should be fun, though exhausting — rehearsals are from 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM, just when I want to be rehearsing a rock opera.  Ah well.  I am also waiting on casting for Becca’s play, A Scrap of Time, which I almost didn’t audition for but I would now quite like to do.  I actually really hope she casts me.  I think to a degree I’m bored when I’m not doing a show, and somehow Rocky doesn’t quite qualify in my mind.  I auditioned for a senior film, too, but I wasn’t really suitable for it so I’m not expecting anything.

So I’m dating a guy called Eric.  You may recall him from earlier entries as my Little.  Well, now he’s my boyfriend, or almost, or something, I don’t even know.  I didn’t mean for this to happen, it kind of happened without consulting me…I let it but I didn’t push for it.  I have very mixed feelings.  When I’m actually with him, I’m very happy about it all, and I think we’re going places and I just want to stay in his arms forever.  But when I’m not, I find myself questioning.  Is he what I want?  Will I just end up hurting him?  Am I ready to love again this soon?  Do I actually still miss Tyler or is that some trick of my head or heart?  Can I date Eric when part of me is still in love with Tyler, or at least still hurting from him?  Will I ever love Eric?  Is it OK for me to date him when I don’t love him?  Do I even want to?  Am I attracted to him?  He’s in my tap class and it’s weird and awkward and not good.  Every time I see him in that class I half-decide to break it off.  But I never do.  Maybe I should.  (Of course, I say that now — he’s not here.  It’s not so simple when he’s actually around.  Not that it’s ever simple, exactly.)  I have half a crush on him.  But I have half a crush on several other people as well.  People I would rather be with?  I’m not sure, not at all sure.  I’ve had a thing for Parker since freshman year, but he’s gay and dating Dave.  Something in me is magnetically drawn to Adam J, but would that ever be a good idea?  Probably not.  It would be intense, though, and I miss intensity.  Eric is so laid back.  He’s good, he’s very good and I like him and everyone thinks we’re perfect together. 

Everyone except me…I don’t know why I doubt it, but I do, I doubt it.  And I really, really don’t want to hurt him.  But if things go on going well, it would be a shame for me to call a halt to something we’re both enjoying so much.  I am enjoying it, when I’m not thinking about it.  It’s good to have someone to hold me.  And he has such nice arms.

He isn’t Jewish.  Which brings me to my other troubling issue…I’m not sure that I am, either.  Well, that’s not perhaps accurate, of course I am Jewish and I always will be.  I just think that I’m also Wicca.  I don’t want to go into this at length just now…it’s too emotional and complex an issue…suffice it so say for the time being, it has gradually come to my attention that the true beliefs of my soul, which I have spent my whole life trying to integrate into Judaism, are not just strange and random things that I have somehow come to believe.  They are the basic teachings of Wicca.  And it’s tearing me apart.  Time, perhaps, to do something about this.  But what, oh what, will my family say?

–Stephanie