This post is just a bit late and a bit short. It is a post about dreams and plays and heroics and not dying. This post is a post about life; it has to be late and not enough.

I had a dream the other night. It was auditions. (Tomorrow, oh my goodness!) This girl walked up on stage, total badass. She commanded attention. Short, boy cut, spiky hair. Attitude. And I immediately knew who to cast her as, despite how little she physically looked like the character. She was badass. She exuded what the Mel in my head exuded.

I don't know why I dreamt that. I've been mostly dreaming of the exact character walking in all the other times I've dreamt of auditions and specific charcters. It was weird. But that girl walking in was like a dream come true, even if it wasn't the Mel I'd always dreamed of. I think maybe it was about how dreams really come true. Not word for word, letter for letter, but in ways you didn't always expect.

I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up simply because I wanted to be everything. I wrote. I designed clothes. I sketched out buildings and other structures. I took my legos and built cars, houses, stores, cities, entire universes. I made beanie baby plays. I sang, I danced. I dreamt of making music, playing instruments like my heroes. I created.

Yesterday, I was working on designing sets and costumes when I realised that this really is what I've always dreamed of. It's not word for word, letter for letter, but it's better. Instead of choosing one thing, I get it all. This play is me living out my childhood dreams. And I'm only 18.

I dreamt of being a hero more than anything. There was always a little boy in the street that I'd leap out to save from a speeding car. But dying is the end of being heroic. One life saved, and that's it. No more being a hero. But at least then it's obvious that you were a hero, that you gave your life to another.

I think I am a hero. Maybe not the best yet, maybe not superman just yet, but I'm a hero. Art will save someone's life like it saved mine, and I am making sure art has that chance. My life is given to saving another's.

Or so I hope.

My Big Fat Crush

Last Thursday, I met with the students I will soon be directing. In fact, in two days, they will be nervously getting up on stage in front of me and the rest of their future cast members to audition. You know that jittery feeling you get (or got) when you the girl or guy you like is about to walk by and you want to make sure they notice you and think you're cool but don't want to look like you're trying to hard? That's how I feel.

I have a crush on my job. I really, really like it, but I don't know if it likes me back yet. I think it does. I hope it does. I'm jittery. My heart is doing little leaps. My palms are sweaty. My head is spending every moment analysing and reanalysing everything I said or might say. I had the house to myself the other night, so I sat down and starting talking to my imaginary students, just for practice. I keep texting and calling and Facebooking and spamming and bothering people about my crush. I can't contain it. I'm horrified that my crush might find out though. What if it thinks I'm gross and creepy and weird and stalkerish? I don't want that!

I know the students are nervous too, but they have every bit of naïve faith in me. All they're worried about is whether they're going to impress me or not. Me! When did I become so important? It's frightening. Now I have this image to uphold. I have to act important, be important!

I couldn't stand up on the stage last Thursday and talk to them. I felt so intimidating and so very nervous. So I sat down on the steps, just a little above them. It was better, but they were all just staring at me. That was weird. High schoolers don't do that. They're wild and crazy and don't ever sit still to listen to anyone, especially not some 18-year-old with an over inflated ego who thinks she can direct. But there they were, listening to my every ineloquent word like I was saying something worth listening to. It was crazy. I didn't know how to handle all this new power. I still don't!

I think I'm more nervous for auditions than all of them combined. What if they think I'm running rehearsals all wrong? My student director, theatre expert that he is, will notice every single mistake I make. And the choir director will be there too. What if I screw up and she tells the director of the musical about it? What if they decide letting me be more than just a body to order around would be bad and don't take my input on things this year? What if I go backwards and not forwards?

Blogging is such therapy. I know all the things I'm so afraid of are silly. I'm going to be all right. The only person who will be judging me Thursday is me. The students, including my student director, are all too worried and excited and nervous and anxious about auditions and this play to judge me. All they care about is nailing their audition. And the choir director? Every time I walk in the room, she gives me the greatest welcome ever, and she has been cheering me on with every little step I've taken towards being the hired director of this play. I can't imagine her going, "Oh, that Elizabeth, she is such a horrible director. I can't believe how terrible those audition forms were!" It's ridiculous that I should be so nervous.

But I'm nervous. It's that middle school crush on your childhood best friend. Everything's so great, and you definitely don't want to ruin it, but it is the biggest crush ever. You're going to explode if you don't tell them! And nothing in the world matters more. It's a life or death situation. You could DIE.

I love middle school crushes.

P. S. Just for certain bozos, let's be clear: the crush thing is a metaphor. I don't have a crush on any of my students. That'd be, well, weird; they're my students. The only person I have a crush on is Kristen Bell.

The In Between

I didn't even notice I missed last Tuesday. And yesterday! I'm in the in between right now. I'll probably miss at least one more in the coming week or two. All because I'm in the in between right now.

I function best when incredibly busy. I get things done incredibly fast. I do anything and everything. I am superman.

I can be laid back too. I can relax and just let things happen. This was my late summer/early autumn. I had things to do, and I got them done when necessary, but I spent a lot of time just relaxing, laughing, not doing anything too incredibly important or time sensitive.

I am in the between right now. Half of me is laying on a beach somewhere, just listening to the sound of the rebellious waves crashing upon the sand and then receding right back into the ocean. It's so beautiful and peaceful the way the ocean always lets the rebellious waves back, always welcomes them with open arms no matter what. But half of me has no time for the beach, no time to contemplate metaphors about waves and sand and vast oceans which have little to do with what is happening right now. That half has more important things to do, and it's doing everything at lighting speed.

I think you can see where this is going. My head is chaos right now. The conflicting halves are undergoing a power struggle, a change of leadership. The busy half needs to get the relaxed half in gear and moving. Add in the effects to my cognitive function of what shall henceforth be called That Friday, and my head is just everywhere now. A complete mess. A missed blog post is completely unsurprising and not the only thing I've spaced out on or missed. I'm not even really sure what I've missed.

And my body is fatigued. I'm physically not used to functioning at this speed. I'm out of shape. I'm questioning whether I have put too much on my plate. Clearly, my mind can't handle this, my psyche can't handle this, and my body definitely can't handle this.

But soccer taught me a lot growing up. The first week or few of a season would be hell. I'd feel like giving up all the time. My body wanted to quit. "Hell week" seemed to burn worse every year. But then my muscles would learn, and I was stronger, faster, tougher. Hell week paid off, and each year I was a better player.

The in between is real life hell week. I have to push myself beyond my current limits so I might grow and learn. I have to put more on my plate than I can carry so I can learn to carry all I have on my plate. More than full time student, director of a high school theatre program (that's only in its second year), novel editor (I'll tell you guys about this later), member of two separate families, lead singer of a band, church goer, and a member of society. It's a lot to handle, but I'll push through this transition and learn to handle the new pressures and requirements of me.

I had a dream I was walking amongst the world in an endless sea of strangers. And all around me, I could find nothing-- neither safety nor danger. Every face was blank-- empty.

I awoke shaking. My heart rattled my rib cage, and the putrid smell of my own sweat engulfed me. Fear. I could barely breathe. And I reached for my phone, desperate to call someone and find that the world was filled with more than just strangers, but it was not there. The fear swelled up greater still. I leapt from my bed to find that my legs would not hold me. And I crashed to the floor, weak and helpless, beginning to cry.

I don't know how long I stayed there, crying in misery, too weak to withstand the terror of my dream. Perhaps it was a few minutes, but it was more likely years. Years and years of lying in fear, in desperation. Alone! alone, alone, alone.

At last, I clasped my hands together and whispered to the no one that surrounded me. The only sound was the echo of my own voice and my tired breathing. But a nothing sort of something replied. My legs stirred beneath me and brought me back to my feet. And they carried me from home through dark, empty streets. I should have worried, but the silent reply hushed my fearful thoughts.

And then, suddenly, it was day. I was in the middle of a busy street. People called out to each other-- people with faces! My heart danced. But they did not see me. Cars whizzed straight through me. And soon, I realised I was still alone. Angry, I cursed the nothing that replied, cursed my legs for carrying me, cursed the blind people who could not see me.

And the nothing spoke, voiceless, within the caverns of my mind, suddenly and with fierceness. The nothing spoke without words, without sound, without movement. The nothing merely was. But I was filled with understanding, having received nothing to understand. And my soul, for it lacked a physical home, seemed to explode out of my chest, and I watched as the entire street was ripped apart by the ethereal eruption. I became bodiless.

And as I drifted higher, I realised I had died. My body was in pieces, barely recognisable, and the people rushed to see if it was someone they knew. But upon finding my shattered flesh to belong to someone unknown, they continued about their days, unfazed.

And, at last, I understood that I had always been walking amongst the world in an endless sea of strangers, for who knew me? Who would recognise me, now drifting higher and higher away from the faceless beings? Who would remember that I had ever been anything else?

And the nothingness welcomed me, surrounding and embracing me. And, at last, I was not alone.

Empowered

There is so very much in this world one may fight for. An endless litany of causes, movements, revolutions, struggles, hopes, dreams, and passions. We live in a sea of politics, conflicting ideas, and endless confusion. Who is right? Who is wrong? What is right? What is wrong? It's enough to make anyone feel helpless.

I feel helpless a lot. For all the moments I feel strong and empowered, there are still plenty of moments when I feel like nothing more than one of the billions of humans, simply one species of millions on this plant, simply a pale blue dot in the vastness of the endless space around the tiny planet we call home. When I consider how tiny we really are, how incredibly unimportant and powerless we are in the vastness of the multiverse, every thing we do and value just seems to ridiculous. Every day, we kill each other over irrelevant differences, but does the multiverse even notice or care?

But one human in 7 billion can change our society. It's happened many times. When I consider that, I can feel powerful again, like what I do might truly have an effect. If one person can change humanity, maybe one species truly can have an impact on our planet and even beyond our atmosphere, somewhere in the wide reaches of space.

But I don't think we're ready. I have so much faith in humanity, but it's the future I believe in, not now. I cannot help anyone unless I can help myself first, nor can humanity ever help our world until we learn to help our own species, to help each other. And so the never-ending debate of morals comes in, making it so hard to know where the defining lines of right and wrong truly lie.

We all know, of course, that killing someone without "good" cause is most definitely wrong, but what is a "good" cause? Is there any good cause? Is there any good reason to kill someone? My answer is no. But then someone always has to ask me, "What if killing one person would save hundreds/thousands/millions/everyone?" Our classic example is Hitler. If I could have killed Hitler before the Holocaust, would I? And, somehow, I know the answer is no. Given the hypothetical chance to save the lives of millions of people by taking one life, I couldn't do it.

I don't want to justify my morals. That's not my point. I believe something, and I know I could be wrong. Perhaps the right thing to do, given that chance, is to kill the man who, like me, once dreamed of being an artist. I don't think I have the right to ever take another human life no matter what, but perhaps I'm wrong. I could be wrong. That is the trouble with trying to "do the right thing." It's not that the act of doing something right is so hard or wrong is so tempting; it's that we don't know for sure what's right or wrong. And that is where the helplessness truly comes from.

Knowledge is power, but we can never know. We can only believe. We can only have faith. I have been fighting to have faith for a very long time, and I will always have times of struggle, but I've learned that I cannot ever know, and that I just have to have faith. Faith is my power.

And though I wish I could know (So much for the Tree of Knowledge; what a misnomer.) instead of just believing, I almost like not knowing. Every day, I wonder who is right, and sometimes, my definition of right changes. I learn. It doesn't feel so bad to be wrong, because I can learn. Though I am wrong today, perhaps tomorrow I will learn what is right and become right.

I was not the best director a year ago. I know I wasn't. I did things wrong, morally wrong, by the definition of right and wrong I hold today. And in another year, I will look back again and see all the things I did wrong this year. But each year, I will learn. Each year, I will get closer to bringing our species to that ideal of forever helping each other, getting along, respecting each other, and at last being ready to fight for more than just our own selves, our own little worlds, but for the multiverse.

This blog post, to my amazement, will influence someone. It will make a change in the world, no matter how small, because it will make the tiniest change in at least one person's life, heart, mind, soul. Somehow, with my words alone, I have that power. I am not helpless; I am empowered. You are not helpless either.