The Inevitability of Melancholy

"I've been looking out a window for 18 years. Dreaming. About what I might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it's not everything I dreamed it would be?"

"It will be."

"And what if it is? What do I do then?"

"Well that's the good part, I guess. You get to go find a new dream."

About 6 months ago, I began to think about my next big challenge. MBA? Done! Ironman? Threepeat! Another masters degree? Now I just might be able to get behind that idea. So, I started getting my papers together to apply to the MAcc program at the U. I talked to some counselors and decided I'd give it a whirl. I applied as a non-matriculated student so I could enroll and take care of some prereqs before starting the program in the fall. I was all ready to start classes when a good friend told me about an opportunity to audition for a community play in Draper called "An Ideal Husband" by Oscar Wilde. I memorized a couple monologues and showed up on the audition day, hoping to at least land a minor role...

...I got a lead role. Rehearsals commenced and it came as no surprise that I couldn't act. I dedicated the next 3 months of my life to this play. I ate, slept, drank Lord Goring, memorized literally hundreds of lines. I studied English accents, tried to get inside Lord Goring's head to understand what made him tick. Learned to tie a bowtie, apply stage makeup, and through it all became a close family with my fellow cast members. As the performances began, I soon realized that there was something beautiful and exciting about this acting thing. A feeling I had never felt before, and I caught the bug. We did 12 performances in all. On our last performance on March 26, 2011, I couldn't help but experience an intense feeling of melancholy. I had grown so close to the entire cast, the performances and the reactions of the audiences were an addictive drug, and I didn't want it to end.

Now, I'm over a week removed from our last performance. The melancholy has passed, but the memory remains. What is life but a series of adventures in which we dare to dream, pursue our dreams, experience incredibly intense emotions in the experience, the adventure ends, and the inevitable feeling of melancholy ensues...then the process starts over and we find new dreams, unexpected dreams, hidden talents. What a tragedy life would be to reach the end and realize that we had not lived. We had not taken a chance, risked it all on one hand and taken a chance to chase a dream. You might fail...and so what? You might not! So go for it! It's all in the making of a character.