It hurts to know a good thing is ending.
Finals are wrapping up; I’ve just finished my last shift at the Jermyn Street Theatre; things are changing. I guess I never realized how much studying abroad would bring about change—how consistently, from the beginning to the end of the experience. What I’ve been able to illuminate in more structured, professional words, you’ll find in my previous posts. But some things I can only speak to in a personal way. These are just a few of the good things I’m saying farewell to:
Dear National Theatre, thank you for putting on productions that challenged my conceptions of what theatre could and should be. I’ve known you from the moment I saw War Horse at the Bob Carr in Orlando and something in my heart clicked seeing Amadeus this spring. I can only hope to do work worthy of your stage in my life. Thank you for showing me that the biggest dreams happen—that there is a place and a time where magic can be made.
Dear Prof Mike, thank you for taking me around the city on our independent study days, sneaking me extra theatre tickets, and teaching me about the history of our craft. To be honest, I thought a survey of drama course would be boring until I met you. Thank you for making me expand my definition of what success as an artist is—that being lucky can mean you have a regular role on the West End or a salaried house gig, but it can also mean quitting the machine to write and act and do only what makes your heart beat. Thank you for making tea for me every week; mine won’t ever be as good.
Dear Covent Garden, thank you for being home to my favorite lunch restaurant. Your mocha is the best I’ve had in countries across the globe, and your waiters never mind if I stay after finishing my sandwich to read in the sunshine a little longer.
Dear Westminster Abbey, thank you for being more of a home than I thought you would be, for being more than a pretty face. Thank you for bringing women into worship as Lady Chapels, choristers and priests. Thank you for making the Eastertide series about the nobodies and lifting up the oppressed—for setting the standard of acceptance and welcome that the Church (whichever church) has all-too-often shirked in the name of greed and fear.
Dear Glo, thank you for being my guardian angel. I’m sorry I keep forgetting you’re a sophomore and that I called your boyfriend a pet rock and for all the weird ways you go out of your way to make sure our flat is up to my OCD standards. I love recording podcasts with the microphone in our toaster; I love trying to explain surrealist dramas; I love Nando’s lunches; I love walking through Shoreditch to buy things we don’t need and can’t afford anyway. Most of all, I love you. I never thought I’d find someone who could put up with my nonsense enough to make a home with me—I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but please stay that way. Fly home safe and keep me in your heart like I will you.
All my heart,
Amanda
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