Thanks, Ruth.

Today, someone asked me what on Earth I've done with my Theatre degree.

I looked her dead in the eye, and told her that being nice to others, when one really doesn't want to be, is an acquired skill.

It is, I kid you not, one of the first major lessons in acting they teach you. You HAVE to get along with your partners; you WILL someday be paired with someone you don't like; with your luck, he'll be a major love interest in the show you're in. You will have to work in an office, a store front, whatever, with folks that aren't whom you'd choose to work - but decorum trumps pickiness ever time.

I act like I like people all the time. We all do. Some of us are just better at it than others. How manners, for example, are to make others feel comfortable; not to bludgeon them over the head, when they don't use the correct fork. (for the record? not using an adverb correctly drives me up the wall, I don't care how comfortable I'm supposed to make others feel - adverbs deserve the -ly. It's what make them an adverb. Eat your salad with your desert fork if you must, but for heaven's sake use the -ly))

My least favorite professor, worked me harder than anyone else; she had me so doubting I had any talent at all, I nearly dropped out of theatre school, and stuck with pre-vet. (Failing O-Chem clearly also tipped the scales in remaining in my other major) Ruth, her name was - nothing I ever did, seem to please her: my monologues were funny when they weren't supposed to be, or moved someone to tears, when that wasn't the intention, or I raced through them like a train reeling off it's tracks (slowing down has been a consistent direction from every director)...most students, have a different professor each term. Not I. I had Ruth for three semesters. Through monologues, scenes, full shows; I felt like I'd never gotten it right. I left her class in tears, any ego I had shattered, because Ruth wasn't satisfied. There was always always always something I missed.

Graduation day she pulled me aside to tell me she worked me harder, because I had talent. I was going somewhere. Most of the others?

Not so much.

I've not followed the careers of those I went to college with; my hands have been full with babies and dogs, loves found and loves lost, personal tragedy, getting a bunch of things wrong, and enough laughing with enough really close friends to pee a little. I've loved every minute of it. I wouldn't trade those moments for all the tea in China - but, after college, out here, on stage?

I always got it right.

Reviewers adored me, even the toughest one in town, gave me not only an entire paragraph (unheard of!) but compared me to Emma Thompson. Perhaps, one of my proudest moments. Yes, I framed it - my wall of pride is in my office, in the basement - no one else needs to see it, really. Anyone who really knows me has seen it - the two reviews, the magazine cover I did....

There's an old saying that people work out their issues onstage; the really talented folks are the ones that bring such a wealth of experience to a role - because acting isn't about lying, it's about finding the truth. In the script, your partner, in a role.

I've acted my way through quite possibly the longest divorce in recent history (I could be wrong, but since I don't listen to other's divorce stories, I can honestly say, mine is the longest I know of) slapped a Game Face on when things didn't go the way I'd planned, when life threw some curve balls I wasn't expecting.

Ask my son, he'll tell you my batting is atrocious.

I've stumbled, hell, I've fallen...and I got back up. My theatre degree, I wanted to tell this woman, is doing something: I'm finding the truth in being a mom, a friend, a partner, a role model, a citizen - you're only as good as what you bring to the role. You cannot pretend to be this character, this woman, or child, mother, sibling - you have to be it.

I would know. I pretended to be all these roles: estranged wife, mother, sibling, daughter. If everything remained compartmentalized, none of it needed to be dealt with; no one would ever know that under the well-made up face, great hair and glossy smile was a woman paddling with everything she had just to stay above water.

Ruth always told me to dig deeper, find more of the truth in every character I've played; characters leap off the stage because they come with a life of their own. A history, that brought each character to where they are; it's why no two performances of the same show is identical. Write your characters history, live it - usually, it resembles in some fashion, your history - that's why you got the role in the first place. Directors cast someone because they fit the role.

The show I'm so proud of? Wasn't because I'd gotten the lead; but who the lead was. A woman disgruntled with her life, needing a breath of fresh air, of change, a moment in which to consider who she was, and whom she wanted to be. I can totally relate. I adored playing Lotte, because she went from being rather bullied by her inconsiderate husband, to finding this warm, carefree voice, falling in love with her husband - and he with her - all over again.

Rebirth, I suppose. Renewal. She also had 9 costume changes and some fabulous comedic timing - but I needn't blow my own horn. I've a framed review for that.

What I took away after the lights dimmed, the curtain fell, the theatre dark?

That role was the honest me. The one not afraid of what other's thought; I knew at the end of the show, I'd love me.

Ruth was absolutely right: life is all about finding the truth.

One day, I'll look her back up, send her a note, and thank her.