Ramblings on libraries and life upon the wicked stage

Pride is a strange thing. I’m not talking about hubris, or the pride goeth before a fall sort of pride, but the pride you can have in other people, or rather the pride that other people can have in you. Parents seem to have a natural ability to be proud of their offspring, but my recent foray onto the stage has a attracted quite a bizarre mix of pride manifestations.

The sweetest is my sister, who told everyone ‘my brother is/was in a show!’ and was positively beaming when I saw her in the bar after Me and My Girl (my latest show, and my first principal role since I left school almost 10 years ago). A colleague, who also attended the final performance, said that it looked like she was going to burst, she was that proud. I suspect I’ll return the compliment in August when little sis gets married.

Strangest is a colleague who’s convinced that I’m somehow going to leap from amateur theatricals to international stardom (which would be awful – even if it could happen, I wouldn’t want it to, as I’d go insane). Any bit of progress I make, or thing I’m asked to be involved in, leads to a chorus of “I told you so, see big things are happening”. It’s exciting, yes, but it’s hardly as big as she makes out. She has also taken out dibs on writing my official biography, bless her.

Most inevitable is my mother, but I only discovered the extent of her pride in what I did when I visited home last weekend. She already caused me great embarrassment at church the day after the show, when she almost succeeded in derailing the service by talking to the worship leader about it. People from my church obviously don’t see my parents very often, so they have a very odd image of them! To be fair, though, I did have quite a queue of church folks congratulating me after the service. When I went home last weekend, I went along to mum and dad’s church (which was my church when I lived at home) and discovered that she had shown the programme and the reviews of the show to everyone who knows me. I can just imagine her accosting random people and forcing them to be very interested.

I’m embarrassed, but also deeply touched to see how much I mean to people around me. I am proud of what I achieved, in a dazed sort of way, but their sweet, demented, sometimes misplaced, somewhat excessive, pride is a different thing entirely. I’d best stop writing now, as if I dwell on it too much, I may start to cry.