What goes around, comes around and smacks you silly

I used to be a theatre-junkie.  I read plays, watched plays, cried and laughed at plays, volunteered at theatres and worked on theatre boards of directors for upwards of 25 years of my life.  Shit happened, as it does in everyone's life, and I took a break from theatre rather than get arrested for pursuing people with planks.

I missed it, but pride is a hard master, and I didn't get back to theatre-going-and-living.   Emily and I both love dance, so we took to subscribing to the Dance Program at the National Arts Centre, and watching reality dance programming on TV. 

And every once in a while, I'd sneak in to something theatre-related but obscure, or spend big bucks on NAC theatre tickets to things like Wicked.  Once Facebook got big, I started to see theatre friends putting their faces, and their wit, out there, and I got some vicarious pleasure from that.

Volunteerism doesn't just go out of your soul, even if you've become disenchanted with a particular sector, so I pimped my board skills to other groups, and life went on.

Tonight though, Dave and I went to see a play written by a friend of ours, who happens to be both a clever writer and a wonderful person.  We'd seen the play in the late 90s, and in fact, seen all of his work, and were looking forward to participating in the process of having the playwright open the top of his head, and let you spy on his every thought and its ramifications.  As we expected, we laughed, we cringed, we (I) came close to tears; we were delighted and amused. 

When we came home though, I felt a sharp stab of loneliness and regret that I'd voluntarily (and huffily) moved away from something that gave me such pleasure.  I don't know what I'm going to do about that.