Drama relapse

The other nagging thought was confusion about taking drama in 10th grade as well.

I had been so thoroughly done with it. I remembered how angry I felt about it. I don't think I said angry things to anyone -- I kept it pretty internal -- but the feelings were strong. Why did I go back?

What came back was actually several memories. 

Okay, at Five Oaks I was in a group of six girls. Ericka moved after ninth grade, but everyone else was in that class that I took. 

I think I missed my friends.

I remember so many details from different sketches they did. We had one where we had to go over the same character at different life stages; I remember exactly what Karen, Nicki, and Danielle did. There was one where you had to be the multiple people in the same scene; I remember Ann's. 

There was one with different people with the same dialogue, so the difference is only the delivery, and one where you had to invoke the five senses. I remember mine and I didn't like them.

It was really pretty good stuff, and it was again possible to learn a lot, but I never quite felt right in it. I wanted romance and drama and to get some of this pain out and resolved. 

The reality is that I was much better at comedy. I understood it better and could come up with better material. But I wanted drama, and drama didn't work for me because it heightened everything that was glaring about what I believed was wrong with me.

Everyone else was doing it. Everyone in my junior high group but one, and from my grade school group a little too. Most of the new friends I made did at least one play, so I met them through old friends.

I have another memory of the class that doesn't make any sense.

We did at least two things that did not require creating original material. One was recitation from Cats, specifically "The Naming of Cats". I think I still have that mostly memorized, along with the prologue to The Canterbury Tales.

We also did some small group pieces. They were mostly dialogues but there may have been some trios. 

I did John Guare's The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year, which was pretty cool because I recognized it from some people on the speech team who had done it for a Duo Interp piece. 

The part that doesn't make sense is that I was paired with a guy. 

He may have been the only guy in the class. If there were others, there weren't many. He had fantastic hair. He was friends with at least one other girl in the class. I don't know how or why we ended up together. 

It's a romantic piece. It's also absurdist and ends with his wife killing us both with her shotgun, but nonetheless, there is attraction and connection. One transition involves a kiss, though we cut away before our lips actually met, which I think was the right decision.

Regardless, taking drama again gave me what I thought I wanted, and it was not enough. There I was, the object of affection, and it did not improve my self-esteem or make me think I was one white less repulsive.

It was lonely not having this thing to do with my friends, but this thing was no longer for me, at least not without a lot of therapy first.

What I really needed was something that fit my dysfunction and distracted me.

Well, "needed" night not be exactly the right word for that, but that's what I found and that's what I did.