be brave recital

Layla and Macie have been in a music theater class together all year. Layla loves it! The girls were quite excited for their end of the year recital.

Jacqui took some pictures of the girls on her nice camera. I took these on my phone.

Layla was ready for the show when I brought her backstage.



Her class performed a song from the musical "Matilda."



Baby B sat on my lap for the first part of the performance and was mesmerized by the dancers. She spent most of the time clapping her hands and bouncing her body around. I tried to get a picture of it when Kyler was holding her. It was absolutely adorable.





I was so bummed that from where I was sitting Layla was pretty much completely blocked from my view by another girl. If I had known she was placed all the way on the right side I would’ve gone to stand there to get a better view. From what I saw, she did great! And I know she loved it up there.

She came out and took a bow during the finale. This time she was second from the left.

The week of her recital I was still feeling pretty emotional from my cancer crap. I was a rollercoaster. And the emotions would hit me in waves. But in my head I was telling myself that I should be stronger by that point. But I wasn’t coping well. And then I was feeling guilty. And there was just a lot of emotions. So I hated when it was quiet because then my thoughts went to a dark place and I was bound to cry. This recital was exactly the combination to send me to tears. And to top it off the theme of the whole recital was “be brave.” That reminder to be brave was both inspiring and overwhelming. I fought the tears back multiple times. But after the recital I came to an important realization. Being brave doesn’t mean that you aren’t scared. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard. Being brave just means that you do it anyway. So I finally gave myself permission to take as much time as I really needed to cope. Not just what I expected myself to need. And I realized it is just fine if I do it all scared. I am going to do all of the cancer treatments, and I’m going to be ok if I face the cancer feeling scared. Being brave doesn’t mean the emotions go away. It means we allow ourselves to feel the emotions, the uncomfortable ones too, to face the emotions, and to carry on.

I am proud of my L Belle and her cousin Macie for all of their hard work in musical theater this year. They are such cute girls and the best of friends.