Suddenly Audrey

Saturday evening I was driving, and I felt a little numb (emotionally not physically for those reading this who are concerned for my safety) I was feeling maybe a little blue, but not really sad. It was just weird. I guess I was feeling Magenta, as Blanche Devereaux from "The Golden Girls" would call it. The week prior had been a tornado of frenzied activity as my baby girl was in her last rehearsals leading up to her final 3 shows in High School. I was helping with make-up and hair, so I was right there with her every night caught up in all of it! And then it was all over. I guess that's what I can blame the Magenta feeling on. You know how you feel when a television show you've followed for years finally ends? You've spent years with these people and watching performances that move you and make you laugh, and then that fateful day arrives when you realize I'm never going to see this again. I'm not doing very well at expressing this. I have talked about my youngest in blog posts before. We are extremely close! I have bragged about her singing and acting before, but this was different. Each night I was backstage with her right before show time, and behind the false eyelashes and platinum blond wig, she was her same old self, joking and laughing with her friends, getting frustrated with me because I wasn't styling the wig exactly the way she wanted it, and anything else that's uniquely her. Then I would leave to take my place in the audience to watch the production, Little Shop of Horrors. When Georgi walked out on that stage, she was Audrey, voice, mannerisms, walk, totally transformed. And then she opens her mouth to sing. WOW! Now, let me stop here to say that I am not surprised by her performance at all. In fact I have come to expect it because, plain and simple, she has a God-given talent for all of this. I wish I had been as good as she is when I was 18! Maybe I would have had the courage to GO FOR IT, as they say. Here's the thing, she doesn't realize just how good she is, and that natural talent, like hers, is rare, and that some day it will open huge doors for her. And I guess that's what made me have that numb kind of zenned out feeling, the realization that I was not going to get to see that phenomenal performance any more. It was a moment in time, and now it had passed, and I wasn't ever going to have that moment again. Now, that is not to say that she will never perform again. I know she will, but this one just hit me hard because it is the end of an era, and soon all things that have anything to do with childhood and growing up will be gone. And, yes, do you even have to ask, I am crying while typing this. So, thank you so much, Georgi, for letting me share in this wonderful experience, and seeing you become "Suddenly Audrey" I will miss her, and I know you will too.