Life Intervening in a Show

“The show must go on.” I’m a theatre major, so trust me that I’ve heard this said a million times. Recently, however, it took on a whole new meaning. Yesterday there were two “shows” going on in my life: the daily show that is just an average day of operations at Disney World, and more importantly, my oldest friend’s wedding back home in Pennsylvania. Now I’m a big believer in that the show must go on. Life doesn’t just get to stop in its tracks because you’re having a bad day, because a costume ripped, because someone was late to work, etc. Sticking with the analogy, you have a whole audience that’s counting on you to make things go the way they were planned. But it’s also important to remember that sometimes life gets in the way. For months, I had planned to be home this weekend celebrating the wedding of one of my closest friends. Hurricane Dorian had a different idea. After my flights were canceled and the airport shut down the day I was supposed to leave, I picked up some shifts so that I wouldn’t be sitting around thinking about how devastated I was about missing the wedding. So the wedding went on, and there were chipmunks running around Animal Kingdom as if nothing had ever happened. But the appearance wasn’t the truth. In Florida, there was a girl crying unseen on set (mostly out of happiness, and a little bit out of sadness) because she had just watched her friend walk down the aisle via livestream. Thank goodness for a well-timed thunderstorm. And when she got back off stage, this girl got to watch the bride and groom be pronounced Mr. and Mrs. The two shows went on, yet life affected them both. One of Chip’s attendants yesterday made this observation: “That was a beautiful moment of life intervening in a show. I know it’s weird, but it was so cool being a part of it.” What he said made me stop and think. No matter how much we prep and plan, things don’t always go the way that we hope they will. Life is sometimes going to get in the way, but that doesn’t mean that the show shouldn’t go on. It also means that we shouldn’t pretend like nothing has happened because life sometimes getting in the way reminds us that we are human and that our lives are messy in a good way. So appreciate the mess. Let it remind you how lucky we are to have so many important things in our lives that sometimes important things can’t help but come crashing into each other. But despite the crash, the world doesn’t stop spinning, and the show must still go on.