Ten Days & Ten Years

10 days ago I met my best friend of 10 years in a Starbucks off Regent Street. Above us, the Christmas lights glowed, but she was at her least sparkly. Nearly 8 months of auditioning, not marked by rejection, but marked with 'maybe's and 'you're on the books's and sometimes just no word at all. No closure, no progression, she'd lost hope. With savings from her last job running out, she was stuck, trying to find a balance between the money she desperately needed and the shifts she couldn't commit to in case of last minute auditions. 

Some time near the start of my 10 year friendship with Bethan, her family took me to see Evita with them. I'm pretty sure we made a comment about how one day it might be her on stage in a show like that. It seemed both absolutely impossible and also entirely possible back then. It seemed like all it would take was a flick of a switch.
Over coffee 10 days ago was the lowest I think I've seen her about her career. It wasn't that she was depressed or distraught, she was just done. She'd accepted that she wouldn't get anything til at least after Christmas and had no hope for the audition she was heading to after our catch-up: the UK and world tour of Evita. I didn't know what to say except repeatedly assure her that something would come up. Fast forward to last night, 10 days later, and we met after a full day of rehearsals for that same show she was sure she wouldn't get.

We didn't drink champagne. We chose the cheapest place to eat, and talked and laughed just like we did 10 years ago over pick 'n' mix on the floor of a community centre before dance classes started. Her life hasn't magically got better. She's still got no money, she's having to crash with a friend and she's well aware this is just one contract, just a few months worth of work. But something she wasn't expecting to happen happened. Something she'd worked for relentlessly sought her out and caught her out when she was most adamant that it wouldn't.

What moves the sun and the stars? Something epic, right? The incredible power of physics? The sheer will of the universe? The same thing moves you. Whatever you believe it to be, that same force that created the universe created you too. That same force is pushing you along right now, to where you're meant to be. Not to where you'll be ultimately happy, not to where you'll be incredibly rich, not to where you'll never have any problems at all ever ever again. But to where you'll learn and grow and get to experience something, anything, even if it's not what you expect or when you expect it. So if you've had a shitty day, and the cold surprised you, and the blues bit you out of nowhere, just trust that the same force pulling the sun down and the moon up into its place, is working on you too. 

x