wicked

i still can't get over the fact that this happened.  i don't win things.  my name is never the one drawn.  but last night, when it mattered more than usual, it did, i won, it was.

kickass seats and all.

i showed up two hours and forty-five minutes before the show started (thank you, no traffic, thank you, speedy little car), waited the fifteen i had cushioned in, and talked to other people about the lottery and about wicked and about how nervous we were.  this was her fourth time.  i don't handle suspense well.  i was heart-pounding, butterfly-stomached, fully expected to go home dejected.

i didn't.

i put my name in that drum and they wouldn't say how many tickets they were giving away but they called out eight of them and then the woman yelled out "ANNA MARTIN" and i couldn't believe it but i busted through the crowd up there, actually shaking as i counted out the fifty dollars for two incredible seats.

and then i had to call sarah and squeal about it.  and squeal about it more when she got there.  and repeat over and over, through dinner and drinks and wandering around tobacco campus, "i can't believe we won."

the show was AMAZING.  i spent a good part of it grinning up at the stage.  i'd never seen it before, but it always seemed like one i should see.  and that was true.  i don't know what to say about it - the lights, the voices, the dancing flying monkeys, the green and the dancing and the emerald city, fiyero who looked like someone we couldn't quite place, the singing, the songs, the voices, the voices, the VOICES.  elphaba.  and glinda.  the dresses.  the set.  the sister.  dr. dillamon.  the hidden jokes.  the lights.  the voices.  the lights.  the voices.

it was one of those nights where i was so struck by how my life is MINE.  and it is fantastic.  it is wholly fantastic, and when you don't get your way it makes it that much better when you do.  i'm so lucky, in so many ways, and i'm so lucky to win when it really counts.