Sunday, December 5

Chain reaction

Today was my last Juletide performance. Ever. It's a very empty feeling right now, sort of in the pit of the stomach. It's something that I'll never do again, and I'm glad to have participated in it, for all of the long reahearsals, aching feet, colds, increasingly crazy Glorias ... it's been well worth it.

I didn't think that I was going to cry - I was good all the way through both of our pieces, even though TP had his Look. I was even good through candle-lighting. But then I looked at Westie Nobes as he signaled the last cutoff, and he just looked so incredibly old and frail that one solitary tear slid down my cheek in sympathy. As we all know, tears follow the "safety in numbers" philosophy. By the end of the finale, I was definitely having some leakage. I saw Franzie from across the way, and I saw her crying [or at least fighting off tears] and finally I just let them fall. I can't stand watching friends cry alone, so I have to help.

And we bowed, and the tears kept coming down. And TP acknowledged Westie, and he gave his final bow, and I cried more, because it's just sad when old men cry.

Then the concert was over, and we took our senior picture. Our "usual group" was clustered in the middle, with the rest of the seniors from the other choirs surrounding us. Somebody started singing songs from our freshman and sophomore years in choir, and everyone joined in, laughing and crying all at once. We were a spectacle.

Our group left the seniors and joined Timmy and Scowly-Bling in the CRH, so we could have some private pictures. It seemed like everyone's parents were there to take pictures except mine, but I wasn't the only one. [Mine were here on Friday, and Thadd and Timmy and I took a couple of photos by Oedipus and Antigone, and Thadd's parents were here before, too ...] I'm excited to see our line-up shot - it's like show choir, sort of, and I've got a yoga pose going on.


But it's the end. And it's also started snowing. I'm not sure how I feel about either of those things.

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