For as long as I can remember, I’ve been scared of something. Dogs, thunder, bugs, the dark…there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t encounter something that makes me afraid.
The biggie, however, is heights. Stairs, elevators, balconies, stepladders-heck, I even get dizzy sometimes standing up to look at a hymnal.
So why am I in love with the theatre? Why do I go to shows knowing that there will be myriad stairs to confront and no safety bar when I get to my seat? I can’t answer the first one, but once I am in my seat, I am okay until I have to stand up again.
The problem comes during intermission. For some reason, I can’t get through a play (or a movie) without having to use the facilities. For any normal patron of the arts, this would not present a problem. Most people can get up, brave the line, take care of business and be back in their chair in time to enjoy Act Two.
I’m not normal. I freaked out once at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum because there was a walkway overlooking some of the exibits. To get from point A to point B, I had to cross the walkway. I did…eventually, but not without my muscles locking up and my body refusing to move despite Kenny’s not so patient urgings.
I just about lost my breath at the Biltmore house when we had to go single file up the backstairs for the “Behind the Scenes” tour.
And crossing from car to car on our honeymoon train almost ended our marriage before it began.Â
So when September came and my family and I went to see -Wicked-, I knew I was in trouble. The music was good. The sets were good. The show was great. My fear was out of control. I made it through Act One without having to rise, but by intermission I knew I had to get up.
This presented a problem. On “land” I can go to the restroom alone. Up high, on the very top row, there was no way I was going to be able to make it by myself.
Enter my cousin Emily. Emily is about ten years younger than I and I remember her as a supremly confident three year old playing Clue with the “older kids”. She is now a grown up nurse with dark eyes and a pretty smile. And she became my “bathroom buddy”. Though she didn’t have to go herself, she let my eyes follow her feet down the narrow aisle and back safely to my seat again.
I’m getting better. When I was a teenager, my brother used to carry me up stairs. When I was first dating Kenny, I wouldn’t get near an elevator until his arms were wrapped around me so tightly I couldn’t fall. And church balconies rarely, if ever, saw my presence.
I’m getting better, but I’m still terrified. And I’m thankful that for that day, Emily gently took one step and then another, leading me through my fear so that I could enjoy the musical we had both been wanting to see.