Under Pressure

Every year about this time, I go underground for a little while. My time is spent volunteering for a youth theatre company in some large and unbalanced fashion. Theatre, is a passion of mine, and being able to work with kids that are truly amazing, is a gift.

Within this volunteer time, lies a lot of sleep deprivation, some fairly high stress levels and perhaps a few tears. Aside from that, there is also laughter, beauty in the chaos, and working with some truly devoted, awesome human beings.

It is said that there is no true selfless act. That broken down, everything we do, no matter how philanthropic, pays us back personally in some way, and it rings true to me. Not only do I gain inspiration from these kids and the people working from them, I also gain knowledge. I learn every single year.

In this life, I want to try to be a better me than the me that came the day before. I want to know myself better, learn more, understand people more, give more. Taking on a new role this year, as stage manager of a large show, learning was absolutely what I did. The me that came ten years before would not have pulled it off. She would have cracked under pressure. She would have made excuses. She would have dug deep down when the going got tough and come up empty. For all the surprises that life has brought, and all the paths unexpected, it has landed me here and this is exactly where I want to be.

Along the way, there were some triumphs, there were hurdles refused, but there were also some failures. Some moments that during decompression, I look at and make note to choose differently next time.

Under pressure, there are choices to be made. Always learning, always growing, it is my hope that I will not only choose to find areas where I can adjust and improve my contribution, but also that our children enter this world recognizing that it's okay to err. It's important to take responsibility for what you contribute, and always, always welcome the learning.