Time to Say Goodnight

"I'm crying because out there he's gone, but he's not gone inside me." - Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes

Last night we finished my senior project, the supposed culmination of all my theatrical experiences here at BYU. It was a wonderful process, at times unbearably frustrating, that I got through only by the grace of God and one amazing cast, crew, and director. I don't think I ever wanted it to end. Now in the bittersweetness of the day after, I find there are a few little letters I didn't get to send.

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To Agnes Mundy:

We built a bridge between our hearts, you and I, and pulled each other back and forth across it. It was a long and arduous process, one I was hopelessly intimidated to begin until I started to discover just how much we had in common. But surrounded by our family - those actors became a family for me just like their characters were supposed to be for you - we accomplished something wonderful. Last night when I walked out of the light and into that amber-lit hallway for the last time, I turned around to realize you were gone. All I had left was the oppressive grief I'd been staving off all night - the understanding that this whole experience was really over. I like to think that I left you somewhere in the imaginary greenery that existed just outside the set our wonderful designers created. Wherever you went, no one's ever going to see you again.

At first I cried when I realized you were gone, that it was just Alexis and me standing outside the doors to the Margetts Theater. But then I walked back in for curtain call, and then I was crying because it turned out it was Alexis and me (and Emily and Maggie and Becca and Rhett and Critter and Gary and Stephanie and David and everyone else) all along. And that's what made it all so beautiful.

The set may be gone, the performances may be over, the costumes may be back in storage. But you and the rest of this cast and crew will always be a reminder of what I can accomplish if I'm just willing to let it happen. I learned so much from all of you. Thank you.

Yourself in Another Life,
Julie

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To The Cast and Crew of My Beautiful Senior Project:

What can I say that we haven't already tried our best to say to one another? You are amazing. You are beautiful. We've gotten through a lot, the little group of us that made our family, but we got through it together. I can do things now that I never knew I was capable of doing. I realized things I never knew I needed to know. I'm a better person than I've been. And that's because of you. In lieu of thinking of anything new or original to say, I dedicate to all of you the following poem by e.e. cummings:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

When I think that all I've been through in the past few years allowed me to end with this, it makes me grateful for everything. I've had other perfect shows before, but never one as special or as meaningful as this. Thank you.