the same team.

There is something about people sharing a common goal that makes you close. It gels you together, like it or not, in a way that is binding. You share experiences, persevere together, and suddenly bam! you are close.

   You don't even remember how it happened.  And the moment when you could really say you are friends is foggy at best.  But nevertheless it is there, as difficult to pin-point as the exact moment when the grass becomes wet with the dew, but nevertheless undeniable in the fact that the world is now shimmering with it.  

   It's funny how doing this show so many times with these people puts you on the same side. The side of sharing the same commodity; of telling the same story over and over again and hoping to get a little bit better each time; of trying to kick your face and hold your center and point your feet and belt out high notes while staying on the same dip-thong and make it look effortless all the while when really, you all know the truth, you all share the secret: this is hard stuff.  Not effortless, not by a long shot.  

   It's not necessarily like us against them when it comes to the audience, at least not in any kind of hostile way at all. But at the same time, it is such a group effort when we all try to win over an audience, make them interested in our collective story, make them laugh with us, cry with us, hope with us, believe us, that it is a little bit like us against them. 

   You know, cause again, we're all on the same team. Team ACL, I guess, as horribly cheesy as that sounds and yes, you can go throw up a little if you need to.  But if it makes you feel any better, we don't have matching outfits that we wear...Wait. We do. They are gold and we wear them in the finale. Oh shoot.  But you know what I mean--it's not like we run around with pom-poms and chant poor poetry about vanquishing our enemies and pushing our school spirit at the top of our lungs. 

   No, it's nothing like that. Thank God. 

   It's just really nice. To look around the stage and know that we have each others' back; that we are all reaching for the same goal, more or less. That when something goes wrong, as it does in live theater, then we will all do our best to right it. And when something is strange or funny--like an unusually disgusting and phlegmy cough from the third row or somebody is sleeping like the dead in the first row--well, then we exchange a look, a nod, a small twinkle of the eye and all of the sudden we share the joke and life just got more interesting.  

   And I am a part of something greater than just myself. 

  Now, I am not ever gonna say that we do anything so noble as any of the great men and women who take up arms together to protect all of us here, but I will say that it's nice to be in a company of men and women you can trust.  It's nice to be a part of something in which the sum of the whole is greater than any of the parts themselves.