Lean In - This is Love

I had a show last night. A show that was difficult to get to physically (it was raining the whole drive there) and emotionally: I am constantly balancing my own needs and those of my aging parents. #howdidwegethere

When I pulled into the theater parking lot I did not feel like doing comedy. I felt like pouring myself an adult beverage, curling up in bed, and letting the TV watch me. 

​But I’m a professional. 

As I sat in the back of the room, watching the show, absorbing and gauging the energy of the audience three things happened: 

1. I was sitting at the back table with an older couple. The wife, I presume, was hard of hearing. She could hear the set ups, but not the punchlines. She’d periodically lean over to her husband and say, “What’d he/she say?” And he’d repeat the parts she missed. If he was annoyed or angry with her, I didn’t hear it. And I couldn’t help but think, this… this is love. 
2. For most people, my side of the microphone is a scary place. They ask me, “How can you get on stage?” And I say, “How can I not?” Being on stage is my happy place. Behind the mic is my safe space. Where most people are terrified, I am exhilarated. I am free. It’s so important for me to remember that right now. 
3. After the show, a woman came up to me, shook my hand, looked me in my eye and said, “Thank you for this. I needed this. I really needed to laugh tonight. Thank you.” In this brief exchange, I felt her burden. I don’t know exactly what it was but I felt it. After a certain age, we all have one. And so with equal intensity, I looked her in the eye and said, “Thank you. I needed this too.” 

I can’t tell you how often I get caught up in what I have not achieved professionally, and what I am losing personally. But it’s nights like this — even when I know, on the real, that I was not the venue’s first choice (I was a last minute fill in) that I show up with my “A” game because I don’t know how not to. (My “A” game is my default.) Because almost every time I step on stage I fall in love again with a decision I made at 25 when I didn’t know any better. Because I got the rare and beautiful opportunity to follow my heart; my dream, to be free.
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And this, this is love.