Pix Fix
While raising children, Denise Meagher, a returning area native, became a published freelance writer, voice over talent and enthusiastic community theatre participant. She loves reading, writing, traveling, time with friends and most of her family and empty-nesting with husband, Ted.
Surviving Thirteen - It's a Miracle!
I remember thirteen, don't you? Who doesn't? But honestly, the prelude to that momentous occasion - becoming a teenager, was the worse year of my life - to date.
My mom remarried, which meant we had to move. Again. Along with that blessed union came two older, quite angry, abusive step-siblings. Being the very middle child I now, oh joy, had the opportunity to be picked on by two more people. As a matter of survival, I became quite good at hiding; usually at a friend's house. Anywhere was better than home "sweet" home. If that wasn't possible, I holed up in my room and hid myself in a book.
That same year my hormones almost did me in, literally. I nearly died. The Pollyanna side was no gym class for the remaining four months of school. Oh, and then my mom finally took me to see an optometrist and discovered that, yes, I was quite near-sighted and no, I hadn't been lying when I said I couldn't see anything clearly, the rain gone or not. I was glad I got the glasses but not the cheaper ones my mom picked out. They were hideous!
Thirteen was slightly better, though that was the year my mom became pregnant with my youngest sister, (I wanted a brother), and we added a dying grandmother to the mix for awhile; yeah slightly - very slightly. Hiding was still my means of survival. My sibling situation didn't improve much. I still thought I was ugly. The glasses didn't help. Neither did my extremely young looks, something I appreciate now but abhorred then. "Forbidden" make-up would've helped tremendously.
There's more, but I won't bore you with Denise's trip down a considerably demented memory lane as I'm sure you've enough brutal memories of your own; just as Louis, the main character in Waukesha Civic Theatre's comedic production of A Tiny Miracle with a Fiberoptic Unicorn, by Brookfield Playwright, Don Zolidis, running June 10-26, 2011 does.
Picture this.
It's the winter of 1986 in Brookfield, WI. Thirteen-year-old Louis vows to not only find the perfect gift but kiss the love of his life, the quirky theater queen Carolyn, before Christmas. Standing in his way are the forces of puberty, his big-haired malicious older sister, his anal-retentive mother, and his eternally amused father. The eminent and dreaded arrival of his "colorful" Grandma Jacobs and the surprise arrival of his ever-increasing forgetful Grandma Skolowski, throws the family into turmoil and cracks Louis' world wide open.
Can we relate, or what? It just proves true Patsy Clairmont's words, "In every family tree there's at least one crop failure." (Just one?!)
If you need a good laugh*, please come see this delightful and sometimes outrageously funny PIX FIX look at thirteen, A Tiny Miracle with a Fiberoptic Unicorn, June 10-26, 2011. You'll not only empathize with Louis, but you'll really be glad you're not thirteen anymore! And if you are still splashing in the puddles of puberty, be encouraged. This too, like a bad rain storm, shall pass. Someday, like Louis and the rest of us, you may even laugh about it. . .Or, cry. . .Or, see a therapist. . .
(*For additional laughs join us on June 23, 2011, 7:00 pm for our family-friendly Comedy Tonight. Enjoy a night of improvisational comedy featuring some of the best and brightest young stars in our A.C.T. classes; the next generation of comedy.)
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