Waking up to Gilda

Rita Hayworth once said something along the lines of "Men go to bed with Gilda but wake up with me," referring to her famous glamorous character from the movie of the same name and the fact that men went to bed with their dream version of her but woke up with the reality.  Not being the glamorous movie star myself, I have more often found a flip side of that to be true --  men fall for the quirky, independent, fun, let's-not-say-crazy-but-okay-kind-of-crazy girl but then expect the serious, just-like-their-own-mom homemaker personality whenever it's at their convenience.  I love Breakfast at Tiffany's, but I can't say I've ever really been on board with the ending. I'm kind of on board with Holly in her opinion that Paul wants to control her and stifle/limit/own her free spirit.  The movie has a happy ending, but does anyone really see that relationship lasting?  What's Holly going to do all day?  We've seen she is most definitely not happy as a housewife/ homebody, and it's not like she has a career planned out.  Isn't Paul going to want her to be a housewife just like José did?  In the end, I have to admit I'm of the opinion that Holly and Cat or Holly and O.J. are actually a better match for each other than Holly and Paul.  There are of course movies where it's true of women towards men as well.  Isn't that what Mrs. Doubtfire is all about?  Ostensibly it's about a man dressing as a woman, and it's definitely about a father fighting for his children... but underneath all that it's also about a relationship in which the wife decides it's the very thing she fell in love with about her husband that is now always getting on her nerves.

Yesterday I was watching a Hallmark movie (have I not mentioned once or twice how much I love those?  Seriously, if anyone wants to just cast me in one of those and let me live in Hallmarkland, I'd be cool with that) and was getting quite infuriated with the movie's treatment of the parents of the main female character (this happens a lot when I watch Hallmark movies -- I tend to make a lot of very strongly opinionated statements throughout the film that, depending on my fiancé's mood, either make him shake his head, completely ignore me, or laugh -- I got all three reactions during this film).  The mom, played wonderfully by Brenda Strong, is a vibrant, vivacious, passionate woman who is clearly nowhere near ready to retire.  Her husband, who is seen doing nothing but reading, eating, and taking out trash throughout the course of the movie, really wants them to retire and go to Italy.  Strong's character is very clear about the fact that she's not ready to retire and feels like retirement will make her "old."  She likes the structure and purpose of her day and is not ready to give it up, though she very much loves her husband.   And here's the problem -- despite his wife's very clear and repeated statements of not wanting to retire, he keeps planning their trip and saying how it's for them, how much she's going to love it, that it's just what they need.  It's a given that wanting to go is "correct," and it's a question of what's wrong with her that she doesn't want to go.

I hate that.

The main plot of the film is that Strong's character is setting up her daughter with a successful, passionate pediatrician, and as mom and pediatrician have quite a bit more screen time together than daughter and pediatrician -- and all of that screen time is electric and very fun -- I kept rooting for the guy to actually fall in love with the mom rather than the daughter, and then they could settle down not-settling-down and enjoy their exciting and full lives together, far from retirement.  Alas, the film's downfall is the same reason I love Hallmark -- their traditionalism -- and the movie of course ended with the pediatrician and the daughter together, and the mom -- surprise, surprise -- giving in and retiring and going to Italy.  Boo. 

Oh, and also, when he's not busy being mad at Strong's character for loving her life and wanting to continue it as it is, the husband is also mad when he finds out that they didn't meet passively by chance all those years ago but rather because she saw him, liked him, and so took matters into her own hands and did something.  It's supposedly the very fact that she's such a passionate, active, alive woman that has made him fall in love with her; yet every time he faces those aspects of her personality, he's upset/angry/dejected/dismayed/disappointed about it.

Sure, sometimes you meet the beautiful, exotic, glamorous Gilda and you wake up to a different, more down-to-earth, "ordinary" reality….  But Gilda wasn't only beautiful, exotic, and glamorous -- she was also fiery, passionate, tempestuous, and impossible-to-handle...  And sometimes that's also who you wake up to... so you better make sure you like and accept Gilda... in all sides of her personality.

Finding the little kid inside

I've always been highly aware of how people can have completely different personalities depending on whom they're with and the situation.  I can come off as shy or even standoffish to some people if I'm feeling reserved around them, while other people might call me bubbly and outgoing.  There was one very popular girl from a higher grade in high school who I know was considered one of the "mean girls," and though we weren't friends outside of the classroom, I had a couple classes with her and always found her to be delightfully fun, witty, and warm to me, and she would frequently say hi to me and be friendly when we passed in the hall.  I don't think she was aware that I was not one of the popular kids in my grade, but regardless, I only saw a very positive side of her personality.  Conversely, there was another girl in school who everyone thought was incredibly sweet and kind; I saw her as a brilliant, manipulative liar -- which isn't to say that she wasn't sweet and kind with others, but when she was with me, I clearly brought out the worst in her.  And numerous times I've done a show where there's someone whom I like very much but whom other people dislike, or the other way around.  We could tell each other why that person's actually nice/mean/outgoing/quiet/etc., but as long as different people perceive or for whatever reason bring out different behaviors and different personalities from the same person, we'll always disagree on what their personality is.

With young children, I think sometimes this seeming division in their personality can be even stronger.  They frequently behave exactly as they feel, with no attempt to put forward a different facade or mask their feelings.  There's one young boy in the ballet program I work for who arrives to our school every week with a horribly miserable expression and attitude that would suggest every puppy and kitten in the world has just died and his being forced to be awake and alive in the world is somehow just killing more puppies and kittens -- but either way the whole universe is going to explode anyway tomorrow, so he'd really rather just be in bed….  That's the energy I get from him.  All the time.  The other day, it was particularly bad and he came out of class pouting.  One of the other adults asked him if he'd had breakfast, and he sullenly shook his head no, so she told him to take a seat in the hallway while she went to go find him some breakfast.  So he plopped down dejectedly on the chair, leaving just the two of us in the hallway.  Normally I'd chat with a child in that situation, but I knew from watching others try to engage him that adults attempting to make small talk with this boy just got attitude and sullenness and rarely even a single word in reply.  So I pretty much ignored him, going about my business trying to fix my broken name tag using the supplies on the desk now vacated by the adult who went to go find him breakfast.

On this particular day, I happened to be dressed in my Donald Duck Vans sneakers, skinny jeans, and a bright colorful top with my hair in a pony tail... sooo pretty much like kids his age dress.  And, because my name tag had broken when I was helping to set up before school started, I wasn't wearing my name tag like all the other adults were.  So perhaps in the child/adult dichotomy of his brain, the boy hadn't quite classified me as an "adult."  As he sullenly slumped on the chair and I stood two feet from him working on my name tag, I saw him sit up straight suddenly and tilt his head to see what I was doing.  His brow furrowed in concentration and confusion as I glanced at him.  He looked up at me curiously and asked, "You're a teacher?"

Surprised by his sudden shift to perkiness, I replied, "I'm an assistant."

"An assistant?"

"Yeah.  You know how there are two people in your class who come around and give you corrections?"  He nodded.  "I do that.  And this, obviously" -- gesturing to the hallway and the dressing rooms  -- "helping you guys check in and get ready for class."

"Oh..... "  He thought about that for a few beats and then leaned forward, scooting to the front of his chair and craning to see my name tag. "What's your name?"

I showed my name tag to him, and he asked, "But what's your first name?  I see your first name on the back."

So I told him he could call me "Miss Jessica," wondering where all this personality had been hiding, and then he sat up straight again in his chair, looked at the wall, and asked brightly, "Why is there a big space in the wall?  Why isn't it painted there?  There's a big rectangle where the wall's not finished."

I've been asked about tiny holes in the brick wall quite a few times before, but remarkably, no child has ever asked me about the gigantic 4 x 6 foot rectangle where clearly something once existed that has since been removed.

"That's an excellent question," I replied.  "I have no idea.  Something must have been there once upon a time and they took it down."

"I thought it was a TV at first.  Maybe there was a TV there once."

"A 4 x 6 foot TV?  That's an awfully big TV, don't you think?  And kind of a weird place for one, right in front of the elevator...."

"Yeah, but we have a TV at home that big.  It's huge.  It's that big."

"Really? I have a TV that's about two feet by two feet."

"Huh.  No I think that was a TV once."

Right then the other adult came back with his breakfast.  The boy immediately slumped back in his chair, his eyes lost their light, and he resumed his depressed "I'd rather be in bed" expression, eating his breakfast without another word before silently cleaning up after himself and shuffling back to class.

Stunned by the completely different personality I'd just seen -- by the fact that hey, there's actually a little kid in there -- I told the other adult about it, and she said, "Yeah, I think he's in there, and I think he's a nice kid.  It just doesn't come out much."

There is most definitely an awesome, curious, alive little kid in there somewhere with a definite spark.  I don't know what makes him tick, but I'm pretty sure that for him it's not dancing -- and it must be something other than just the thought of giant TVs.  Hopefully the grown-ups around him can help him find that spark more often.  If so, I think he’d be a much happier child, and I know the world would be a little richer place.

Someone give Lucy a Barbie

I don't like this commercial.  The first time it came on, I thought the main character was an awkward student à la Anne Hathaway's Princess Diaries character; I was very confused when I realized it's actually about a woman asking for equal pay as a man.  In the commercial, "Lucy," trying to give herself a pep talk in the mirror but instead quickly melting into an insipid mess, says she's a great leader (well, she tries to say it, but she loses steam and is as far from convincing as can be) -- yet she clearly doesn't have the confidence to lead herself when there's no one else around, let alone to lead a team.   The same script could be used to show a strong woman who overcomes a moment of self-doubt at the beginning (when in her practice speech she wrongly asks for a "favor") to give herself an inspiring pep talk to go do what she knows how to do -- and then is supported at the end by another strong woman.  So why does the commercial instead show an awkward, uncomfortable, insecure girl who in the thirty seconds we see her communicates nothing but insecurity and self-doubt and shows no signs of why she makes a good leader and manager and deserves a raise?  She plays up every stereotype people have about why they think women DON'T make good leaders compared to men.  I say give the raise to the coworker at the end.  That's a strong woman who is a good leader.  Maybe if "Lucy" pays attentions and learns from her, then one day Lucy will be ready to be a leader herself.

On the other hand, THESE are some confident ladies working to close the wage gap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1vnsqbnAkk

Soap bubbles, sparkles, and sunshine

Sometimes it's the smallest things that can make someone's day.  Performing is like a drug to me, and as with any drug, the high is followed by a low.  And that low is even lower when you don't know when you can get your next high.  I remember finishing a ballet in which I was a lead in high school and it was so incredibly wonderful -- but in the car on the way home, I just wanted to cry, and I couldn't figure out why....   It was because I was coming off the magical high of performing for an audience, and few experiences can compare to that.

On Sunday I had a wonderful show.  We got laughs, huge applause, and in the few moments where I could make out a face in the audience through the blinding stage lights, I saw huge smiles.  I've been that person in the audience with a smile many times, so I know well what it feels like not to be able to contain a smile because the joy on stage is just so infectious....  And to be one of the people on stage responsible for giving that to the audience is such a marvelous feeling and such a rush that returning to the real world is a bit of a letdown, especially when you know you're not coming back to the theatre tomorrow to do it again.  A month and a half of rehearsal, two shows, and all the work and the characters and the lights and the dance and the magic sparks evaporate into thin air, as beautiful as evanescent soap bubbles, and as quick to disappear.

While incredibly happy and grateful to have been part of such a wonderful show, I was nevertheless feeling that sense of loss and letdown after the performance Sunday night.  I had trouble sleeping and only got about two and a half hours of sleep before getting up at 5:15am Monday morning for work.  I felt tired, a little sad, lethargic, and like my eyes were so puffy they were swollen shut.  I had been too exhausted the night before to wash my hair or lay out clothes for the next day, so I just threw on the same jeans and shirt as the day before, ran a brush through my full-of-product hair and pinned it back, and was on my way, feeling generally unfabulous, particularly in comparison to the glamorous sequin-and-feather-adorned sparkly flapper I'd been just the night before.

But then as I walked from Penn Station to work, bent forward slightly under the weight of my backpack and sipping my instant coffee while thinking about curling back up into my bed after work, a distinguished-looking business man in a suit and tie and with a briefcase (i.e. not the normal cat-caller) did a double-take at me, gave me a genuine smile, and as he walked past simply said in a very sincere voice, "You are beautiful."

I know some women would say, "Oh that's so insulting and degrading and objectifying"... but I'm not one of those women.  It put a smile on my face, a perk in my step, and a light in my eyes, and I say that if you can brighten someone else's day with a compliment with no agenda for yourself, then why not?  Sharing a little emotional sunshine is one of life’s gentle contradictions... free but priceless...  and it meant a lot to me.   Sometimes that's all it takes to turn someone's day around.

Thankful

I had kind of a bizarre day today.  But it was a day of being thankful. (It was also a really long day. It's really late... or really early....)

First, I was thankful that I don't live in a Law and Order episode.  You see, I learned last night that I was supposed to wear rhinestone earrings for a show I'm in that I had tech for today... But I don't have rhinestone earrings... or pierced ears (yeah, I know, that makes me a freak, but the idea of getting holes in my ears never seemed appealing enough to put it on my to-do list).  So the choreographer wonderfully suggested I wear eyelash glue with rhinestones left over from one of the costumes.  Which was a great idea.  Except I don't have eyelash glue either.  None of this information is at all relevant to my story, except to say that it was imperative I get myself to a drugstore before tech rehearsal today to get some eyelash glue.  So I walked the 15 minutes to CVS, where I saw a very nervous-looking, wild-eyed man dressed all in black with a big black overcoat outside the store.  He was fidgeting and kind of pacing, looking like he wanted to go into the store but like he was trying to get up the nerve to.  He made eye contact with me and quickly averted his eyes, looking almost scared.  He made me nervous, and I almost turned around and walked away, but I really needed the eyelash glue, and from that CVS it's a half-hour walk to the next closest major drug store.  So I went inside.  He immediately followed me in, and I hung back letting him go in front of me because he was seriously giving me the creeps and no way did I want him behind me.  As I picked up my basket and glanced at him, I realized he had his right hand underneath his coat, gripping something at waist level, and his left hand looked to be bracing the object on the outside.  He stood and scanned the aisles.  Perhaps I've seen too many crime shows, and perhaps I have an overactive imagination.  Most likely he was just an unwell man clutching something perfectly harmless.  But I also trust my instincts, and my instincts said get out of that store ASAP because it totally looked like a mentally unstable man was clutching a gun, and I didn't really feel like finding out if I was just being silly.  So I put down my basket, hurried out the store, and walked 30 minutes to the next drugstore.  I'll never know what I avoided or didn't avoid, but I am thankful that my day wasn't a Law and Order episode.

Next, as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I let out a squeal of happiness and was thankful that Stratford Festival's wonderful production of Hamlet last season is being screened in movie theatres here.  I loved this show.  It was awesome.  You can read some of my thoughts about it (and my favorite audience member at the performance I saw) here.  I've thought about the show numerous times since seeing it and can't wait to watch it again, even if on screen rather than in person.  It's a performance every Shakespeare-lover should see.

Then I was thankful that I get paid to dance today and tech a show as a performer rather than a stage manager.  I get paid to play a character I've fleshed out and given a backstory and a name, and it was my job today to dance and act.  That's such a wonderful feeling.

Then... well, then I was really bummed because my phone went haywire and decided it was a brand new phone that had never been activated (it's not) and it needed to be set up from scratch.  I have horrible luck with phones.  I've had them stolen; I've dropped them two feet and had the screen break and the home button fall out; I've had them die from water damage as a result of making a phone call in the rain...  So I assumed my three-month old phone was permanently on the fritz, but even if it were salvageable, there was no way I could set it up again from the no-WiFi theatre or on the way to the train station.  SO, at midnight, I had no way of checking train times for me to get home.  So rather than walk to Penn Station, I decided to take the subway to get me there faster.  Bad idea, because there were no subways for 20 minutes, and the fancy schmancy ipad-like touch-screen on the platform that's supposed to tell you how far away the subway trains are wasn't working.  Finally, after 20 minutes, my subway train came.  AND THEN... then I was thankful that I'm not on drugs....
 

A group of middle-aged, very high, very large, very masculine, all with beer bellies and not-so-great-at-looking-like-women cross dressers in various states of dress, all higher than a kite and appearing to be on a variety of different drugs with a variety of levels of mental presence, were on the subway train.  They looked like they'd probably started their evening a day or two ago, and I was smiling at how they all seemed so close despite not being really checked in, and thinking they would make great characters, when one started having a seizure, violently shaking and slipping to the floor, and half of them stared at him with a glazed over expression while the other half kept saying, "Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry," as if saying his name over and over might not only bring their friend to consciousness but might also help them break through their own haze as well.  One picked up Harry's feet (in what I think was an effort to keep him from falling to the floor, but the effort was too uncoordinated to do much good).  As passengers looked helplessly around and asked if anyone could help him, a young policeman who was in the car (with no partner around) came forward, and as I caught his expression, which through its composure seemed to flash a split-second "Oh-no I've never done this before--hold on here we go" thought, it struck me that as everyone else in the car sighed a breath of relief that it was no longer their responsibility, this young man to whom everyone looked to save Harry was probably dealing with his first instance of seizure-on-the-subway, and there was no one around to help him.  He of course took control and calmly asked the man's friends to help him with positioning as best they could -- though when the policeman bent down, the others in the group started saying, "No he's fine. He just needs a moment. He's back," when Harry was clearly neither fine nor back. Meanwhile the car was divided into people who gawked (most of them) and people who stared at the floor, not wanting to see (very few of them) -- and me, who got off to walk the last 12 blocks to Penn Station, leaving the end of the story for someone else's eyes... and wondering whether the real story there was Harry and his friends or the young partnerless policeman.

So anyway, I got to Penn Station and JUST made my train.  So did a lot of drunk people.  Including a couple who had a popcorn fight on the train, throwing popcorn everywhere, and at everyone, before the wife declared that her husband was only allowed almond-milk, half an avocado, and three strawberries for breakfast from now on. (She first told this to a woman at whom she threw popcorn, but then she said it to her husband, and then, in case anyone in the car hadn't heard yet, she said it a few more times for everyone else's benefit.)  Oh, and he can have kale.  Lots of kale.  So her husband proceeded to yell, "WHO HAS KALE?!" at the car for the next five minutes while they threw more popcorn.  So then I was very thankful that I'm never a sloppy drunk yelling at a train car about kale while throwing popcorn.

Then I got home at 1:12 AM and was worried because my fiancé was nowhere to be found in our apartment, and with me not having a working phone he had no way of getting in contact with me and I had no idea where he was in the middle of the night and none of the gazillion colorful post-it notes I have on the table were notes from him telling me where he was, so he clearly hadn't been home yet....  But then I logged on to my computer and saw a Facebook message from him that he was at some afterparty for the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame Induction and chatting with some former member of Chicago... so he was doing A-okay.  So I was thankful for that.

Then my phone started magically working.  And I was thankful for that.

And then I checked the mail area downstairs and saw a care package from home -- with homemade brownies and homemade muffins and Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Cristo and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and a yummy-smelling perfume called "Sunswept" that smells like vacation and all sorts of lovely stuff....  And I was very thankful for that.

So, in conclusion (because that's how you begin all final sentences of essays when you're in the second grade, and it's 2:47 am, so my cognitive functions are pretty much on level with a second grader's), I am thankful that I didn't get shot, that I can watch Hamlet again, that I get to dance as my job, that I don't do drug cocktails, that I'm not a crazy popcorn-throwing, kale-ranting drunk, that my fiancé's not lost, that my phone is working, and that I have the best ever parents who love me and send me care packages.  Oh, and I'm thankful for that Reese's chocolate peanut butter in a previous care package.  Because that's what I'm eating.

In Performance

Time for some self-promotion! Because that's what social media is supposed to be all about, right?  This weekend I'll be performing with Hysterika Jazz Dance in Barbara Angeline's "eat Crow" at the New York Jazz Choreography Project April 9th-10th at the Salvatore Capezio Theater at Peridance! http://peridance.ticketleap.com/

For more information about the company and the piece, click here: http://www.barbaraangeline.com/eat-crow.html

And to help support Hysterika Jazz Dance (which is one of the awesome small dance companies that PAYS its dancers), click here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hysterika-jazz-dance#/

Photos: Fran Kirmser

Questions

As a result of my last blog post, yesterday I was talking with my mom about choices, regrets, looking back and wishing we'd done things differently but knowing that hindsight is 20/20... and that all you can really do is learn from your mistakes and mature and apply your growth to new situations you face....  In some ways, and in some areas, I think I've always been more mature than other people my age -- I was the kid hanging out with teachers on the playground; I was always well behaved; I always knew myself and knew what I wanted and worked hard for it.  But in other ways, I feel it's taken me much longer to mature than others my age.  I can look back and wish I'd made smarter choices or choices that would have forced me to mature earlier or choices that would have opened doors....  But everyone grows at different rates, and I am where I am, I like who I am, I feel like I’m a fuller, ultimately richer person because of my choices -- even if they've sent me on a detour -- and looking back at poor choices is only beneficial as it applies to learning from them....

Then today I stumbled upon the wonderful, life-affirming short film "The Answers" by Michael Goode and Daniel Lissing and instantly fell in love with it.  It speaks beautifully to seizing life, fighting for what matters when you have the chance, and asking the right questions when the answers still matter and you have choices in front of you.  I love it, so here it is: https://vimeo.com/152639172

Younger

My favorite TV show these days is TV Land's Younger, about 40-year-old divorced suburban Jersey mom Liza pretending to be a 26-year-old so that she can get a job in a publishing house to put her daughter through college.... The show is actually about Liza reliving her 20s, this time as a hip Brooklynite career girl and with the wisdom of a 40-year-old -- but getting to have the kind of fun she didn't get the chance to experience when she was really in her 20s and a housewife and young mom who never had the opportunity to enter the workforce.

One of the major appeals of the show is of course that everyone can identify with the desire to relive their younger years and make different, frequently wiser, choices.  The opportunity to apply who we are now to situations we faced in the past can be endlessly appealing.  Though closer to Liza's pretend age than her real age, I nevertheless frequently run into instances where I'm confronted with how much I've grown since my early 20s, and I sometimes can't believe the choices I made then.  Sometimes, looking back, I smile at my naiveté and hopefully look at my choices as a learning experience.  And sometimes they just make me mad, and I wish I could slap my younger self for not being my current self.  Many times, aspects of my 22-year-old self are nowhere to be seen anymore, and much of that I credit to my stage management experience; being forced to manage teams and difficult situations, to be extremely assertive (while still maintaining grace), and to stand up both for myself and for others has brought out a side of me that too often in my early 20s simmered under the surface rather than roaring to the front with a fire.

The other day I ran into someone I once crossed paths with professionally, and it reminded me of an instance that I acted in a way I don't even recognize as myself anymore....

At the time, a good friend of mine was working on a show with this production assistant.  The production assistant needed a sub during the run of the show, and as I was completely qualified, my friend arranged for me to sub for her.  At the time that I accepted the sub position, the PA was unpaid, but immediately after I accepted and well before I actually did the subbing, the production started paying her.  My subbing for the week was unofficial (it never went through the producers), and it is standard in that case for the stage manager/production assistant to pay their salary for their missed shows directly to their sub.  I asked my friend (who was the PA's boss, and therefore my boss for the week) to make sure she paid me.  He would not.  He said I accepted the sub position without knowing she was going to be paid for that week, and it would be giving me preferential treatment for him to make her pay me her week's salary (for the week she wasn't working and I was).  I fumed about it and was furious that I was doing her work and she was getting paid for it and her boss wouldn't even ASK her to properly reimburse me.  If it had been anyone else -- anyone who wasn't a friend -- subbing for her, that person would have gotten paid -- so it wouldn't have been giving me preferential treatment to do the same for me; it would have been treating me with the same respect a stage manager should give any sub working for them.  It would have been the right thing to do.  But I only fumed quietly inside.  I never asked the PA herself about it, and I didn't put up much of a fight with my friend/stage manager boss.  So I did a week of work for no money while someone else got paid that week's salary to go on vacation.

Today I don't recognize the girl (and it was a girl, not a woman) who let that happen.  Today, regardless of my relationship to the stage manager, I would say, "If she's getting paid, I need to be paid to do her work.  It's what's fair, and if I'm not paid, I'm not doing it."  And I wouldn't think twice about going straight to the PA and explaining that if I'm subbing for her she needs to pay me her wage for that work.  What I wouldn't do is quietly accept my value as a worker being disrespected and diminished because someone else was afraid of how it would look to treat me fairly.

I gradually developed skills that allowed me to move up from working as a production assistant and to move into assistant stage management positions and then production stage management, and I began working for a wider variety of production groups.  Though I had not initially planned to work as a stage manager (I more or less fell into it when I got a job as a PA on an Off-Broadway show my first week out of college), I am so thankful I spent time climbing the ranks.  It forced me to find my courage in standing up to people.  So many times in the last few years, I've found myself in the position of protecting others, whether from falling scenery that producers didn't care about or tumbling repeatedly on a cement floor or being pressured to let producers break union rules.  There was a time when I would have been uncomfortable at work in the role of being the voice for others who don't want to speak up, but I find myself so frequently slipping into that role now.

There are of course other situations 2016-me would have handled very differently, including making use of openings I didn't know how to deal with at the time.  But while those often make me frustrated realizing how I failed to act, I appreciate the fact that I've learned and grown a lot, and in the end, I find the only choices that make me truly mad are the times I didn't stand up for myself.