I love being a wife and mother.  My family is my greatest joy.  In fact tonight I cuddled in the rocking chair with both my girls and watched "Ramona and Beezus".  We all cried during the sad parts, and I even cried during the happy parts.  It fills my heart to spend time with my girls.  They are getting older, in fact daughter #1 has new found independence and attitude that I'm not adjusting to very well at all.  But she still loves to spend time with me, she still allows me to hug her and kiss her owies better, and she still loves to cuddle.  I know these times are precious and will be over before I know it - which leads me to my current state of confusion.

Maybe it was the full hysterectomy at age 30 that has led me to an early mid-life crisis.  Maybe it's this crappy weather (I loathe winter and snow).  But lately I've had a very hard time feeling like myself at all.  It seems I'm just this robot that acts as wife and mom.  Alone time is laughable.  I can't even go to the bathroom without someone barging in needing me urgently.  I was so fed up a few days ago that I actually announced that I was locking my bedroom door and Heaven help the person that interrupted me while I took a long, hot, well-deserved shower.  I still want to be the trophy wife and mom, but I need to find something for myself as well, some sort of balance.

Which led me to my latest adventure/humiliation.  A girlfriend took me to a play a couple of weeks ago in this amazing little theater-in-the-round.  They are a quality operation and I notice they were holding auditions for an upcoming play.  A play - not a musical - which is a rare thing in these parts.  I have acted/modeled since I was old enough to walk, but I cannot carry a tune in a bucket.  I went onto their website and got the audition sides yesterday.  There was 1 female role - a British speaking female role.  There are several dialects I can pull off, but British is not one of them.  I spent most of the day yesterday listening and mimicking the BBC.  I felt decent about my days worth of progress so off I went this morning to my audition.  Let me make this clear - I had no delusions of being cast.  My husband challenges me each day to be and do better.  We've made a New Year's resolution to do the things we don't want to do, or are scared to do.  Without doing those things we stay stagnant - and become totally boring!

The audition wasn't horrible.  There were 6 people in my line, 2 males and 4 females.  I don't know that I was the worst, but I definitely wasn't the best.  They posted the callback list rather quickly (I think they have their favorites that work show after show) and I was not on it.  For a moment I felt really rejected.  But I had to let that go.  A British accent?  Me?  Let's be realistic here - I wouldn't even buy a ticket to see that.  So I went and did a little "retail therapy" at the most amazing thrift shop in the world.  I finally got the fabric to sew a cushion for the bench in my mud room.  Onward and upward!

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