I Want to be Little

I want to be little again. I want to sit in Mommy's lap and be held, and know I'm safe and the world is good. I want to know everything's going to be all right. I want to sit in Daddy's chair with him while he reads me the Sunday funnies. I want to be confident and secure again. I want all the bad things and hard things to be years and years away. I want to appreciate what I took for granted as a child. I want to be tucked in. I want to be hugged and loved. I want to be little and safe again.

She Never Failed

My hysterectomy is scheduled for August 23rd. Sweeney Todd auditions are on August 17-18th. The performances for Sweeney Todd are October 17-26th. The surgery is supposed to lay me up completely for 2-3 weeks, and be at least 6 weeks before I can drive. The performances are only 7.5-8 weeks after my surgery. Then there's the little problem of rehearsals - how would I get there? Would I feel up to it? Would I even be able to sing properly, since my abdomen will be sliced from one side to the other?

One more dream down the chute. There's just no way I could do the show, even if I did get to be Mrs. Lovett. I've wanted to be in Sweeney Todd since I was a little girl and saw it on PBS. Dammed doctors and their pissing contests! If I'd had surgery as scheduled, on July 12th, everything would have worked out fine!

I guess it's a relief, eh? Now I won't have to audition, and possibly fail. There's an old adage I've heard many times: "You can never succeed if you never try." Well, the flipside of that is "If you never try, you can never fail."

That's probably the motto of my life. I've always been afraid to put myself out there, even moreso as an adult. I'm afraid people will laugh at me. I want to hide. I feel like a walking joke, anyway.

They'll put it on my tombstone: "She never failed." And in tiny letters below: "(Because she never dared.)"