WANTING TO GET OUT

Life at home was hard my senior year.  Family life had been difficult for years and now I desperately wanted to escape, but I couldn't think of a way out.  I stayed busy at school with friends, football games, acting in plays and going to the theatre.  But no matter how busy I tried to be I always had to go home eventually to chaos and conflict.  My brothers were affected, but they were too young to realize that we lived in a war zone created by our disappointed parents.  There was no money for college or for anything else it seemed.  Some of my friends had married, but since I didn't have a boyfriend marriage didn't seem a possibility.

But then a opportunity for escape appeared.  I had played my first lead that year in a play called Nine Girls.  Our drama teacher and director, Paul McClure (whom I idolized) told me a lady from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia was visiting high schools all over Florida looking for possible drama majors.  I had never heard of Wesleyan, but what did that matter?
This wonderful lady was handing out scholarships!  Mr. McClure suggested that I prepare a brief audition piece so I chose a scene from Our Town. Emily and George grow up together, fall in love and marry, but soon after they are married Emily dies.  She is given a chance to revisit any day of her short life and she chooses her twelfth birthday.  The scene is heartbreaking.  Emily realizes how fleeting life is, how quickly precious moments fly by and we hardly notice.



I somehow understood how Emily felt and I put my intense longing into the scene.  On that empty stage I was Emily for a few brief moments. Afterwards, the lady from Wesleyan came to me and took my hand.  "We want you at Wesleyan, Linda."  There were tears in her eyes.  And just like that my life changed as I stood there in the dim auditorium.  I couldn't speak.  Mr. McClure came to my rescue and began talking to that wonderful lady.  Together, they made plans for me, but I couldn't understand what they said.  I just stood there, overcome and not knowing what to do next.