The Little Things

Cherish the little things.

I never dreamed this day would come. 

It all started when I was 8 years old and decided to audition for my first show with Christian Youth Theater, CYT. 

I stood on the audition stage in hot pink overalls, showing off the huge gap between my teeth, my hair in tight, even pig tails; I was ready.

Little did I know this organization would slip into my heart and impact my life so that one day, when it was time to age out, it would be one of the hardest things to let go of.

Accompanying each Spring show, we held a graduation ceremony for the seniors. People would speak for them, the entire cast would cry and hug as we reminisced about their CYT careers.

Many of these seniors were people who my friends and I looked up to; they where my role models. I attribute to them so much of who I am today. 

Seeing them leave, go off to college, grow older, get married, even have children has been such a wonderful thing. These people who helped shape who I am today are living amazing lives, and I still get to be a part of them because of CYT. 

However, this year was different. This year the cast looked at photos of me and my friends from our first show, to our awkward teenage years, to now. This time I got to choose who spoke for me at my graduation. This year I graduated alongside the most incredible people; my best friends. 

 I am not going to lie, I was not looking forward to that day. May 25, the dreaded day, quickly approached. 

But it wasn’t necessarily the fact that I had to grow up that was sad, or the fact that I could no longer perform. Growing up is inevitable, and performing is my major. But it was the fact that I could no longer perform with this particular company that hurt the most.

Theater is a very rough environment. It’s ugly, cutthroat and brutal. Good career choice, right?

But CYT somehow hid that from the naive eyes of the youth, and kept the innocence in theater so that kids of all ages could really enjoy theater without having to grow up too quickly. 

CYT somehow bridged the gap between each age group and brought us all together to perform as a family. And it really felt as if each cast was a different family. 

From age eight to eighteen, everyone one of us where friends. We all hung out, asked how each others day went, had sleepovers, we really do care for one another. 

And every single person is accepted. It doesn’t matter if you stutter, are in a wheel chair, or are bullied at school, you walk through the doors at CYT and all of that goes away, and people look at you for who you really are; a nerdy kid who just wants to be on stage. 

I truly attribute the person I am today to CYT. I stayed out of trouble, I had the strength to be true to who I was, even if people at school didn’t understand that, because I knew when I went to CYT, myself was enough. 

As a kid, I remembered thinking, “I hope that I can be a great example to younger kids, and influence them as much as these older kids have influenced me.” And I have tried my best to do so. 

But what I found is something beyond what I was expecting. These kids touched my life, these kids influenced my life far more than I believe that I influenced theirs. 

You see, each kid brings something new and unique to CYT, but they all possess something that is the same: their innocence. They reminded me of how important it was to keep some of that innocence in the world. 

The world can be a negative, sad place, but it all comes down to how you look at it. And these kids look at the world through wide, glistening eyes, and they see good. They see the positive, wonderful things in the world that  makes life worth living. They see the little things.

So as I stood on the stage for one last time at my graduation, I wasn’t wearing hot pink overalls, I no longer had a huge gap between my teeth, my hair was not in tight, even pig tails; but, I was ready.

I looked at each one of my friends, sobbing by my side as we all graduated together, and then I looked at each little kid, all 60 of them. And they where sobbing too, because I was leaving them to go to college. Knowing that they would miss me made my heart ache even more. I was going to miss them so much more than they could ever know, but I am going to try my very best to stay in their lives, just as each one of my role models has done for me. 

After the graduation ceremony ended, there wasn’t a dry eye in sight. 

I hugged each kid, and began to cry even more as their little bodies trembled and their eyes soaked my shirt. 

As I tried to calm one of them down, I picked her up and sat her on my lap. I sat, stroking her hair, telling her everything was going to be okay, that I was still going to see her whenever I came home from college. 

Then she flipped like a switch and immediately lit up. “Oh yeah,” she exclaimed as she threw her arms around my neck.

As she beamed at me, I couldn’t help but wonder how she always managed to be so happy all the time. And so I asked her. 

This little 8-year-old took my hands, and just stared at me smiling, and I couldn't help but smile back. She kissed me on the cheek, hopped off my lap and went to go get ready for our final show. 

At that moment I knew that it was the little things that made these kids so positive all the time. They live in the moment without a care about the past, or the future, just what they knew at that moment. 

And I knew that I not only left these kids with happy memories and a good example to follow, but these kids taught me an invaluable lesson that I was prepared to take with me to college—to cherish the little things.