Insomnia

I've been thinking about my monologue.

Yes, I've performed it six times in the past two weeks and I'm enormously tired of it. Yes, I feel incredibly self conscious when I read it. But I adore it.

Above everything else I just said, I'm so scared of losing this monologue. By losing I mean that when I perform it, it doesn't mean anything to me anymore. The sheer emotion I felt when I performed it for the first or second time is slowly being replaced with cold stone words.

The piece itself is relatively short. It's from Our Town by Thorton Wilder. It's when Emily comes back from the dead (her spirit, it's not a zombie play), and she's contemplating her life and her death.

"I can't go on. It goes so fast. We hardly have time to even look at one another. I didn't realize- that all that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back. Up the hill... to my grave.

But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Goodbye world. Good-bye to Grovers Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking. And Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh earth, you're to wonderful for anyone to ever realize you.

Do any human beings ever realize life as they live it?- every every minute?"

It's so easy for me to imagine things I have taken for granted and lost in my thirteen years. But sometimes I need to improvise an image in my mind that somewhat matches the thing being said goodbye to- then thinking about how it would feel to lost that.

This monologue makes me realize how quickly and unexpected we could die. I may be typing contently right now, but it's possible that n a few seconds time, a bomb could explode in my building. My ceiling would fall and crush me. The ocean of clothes and crap on my bedroom floor could form a tsunami and swallow me alive- now I'm being ridiculous. But you get my point.

I seriously need to read Our Town. Among other things I need to do, including homework, studying, test prep, cleaning, finishing my play, and most importantly sleeping. And to that I say MIGHTY G'NITE MATES