I've just returned from seeing Julia Sweeney present most of her show, "Letting Go of God", here in Seattle. I've had my tickets for about 3 months now, ever since I heard that she and Ira Glass were going to be here to present the show on the radio. My excitement was prompted by having heard this excerpt of the show (type Godless America in to the search bar) some time back. I've listened to it a few times since, and could not buy my tickets to this live version fast enough.
The night began mostly as I expected, there isn't a lot of mystery as to how these things work. You walk through the doors, you hand your ticket over, they tell you were you're seated, you sit down, the show ensues, you go home. But after I had sat down I started looking around at the beautiful theater and the various people. I looked over my left shoulder and sitting in the next section over was my ex-boyfriend's ex-boyfriend, the one that he left for me (an act I did not request) and who has not acknowledged my existence since, even when we are standing face to face. I shook my head and chuckled a little bit and looked over to my right, and seated in the next section was my ex-boyfriend, who left the other guy for me, and who once put me and that act into the summation of "you're a constant reminder of biggest mistake I ever made." This was while we were still dating and laying in bed having just had sex. But I digress into old news.
The ex was with his new boyfriend, and they were both pointing up at me (or at the other ex, I actually have no idea), and waiving. I waved back, and sunk into my seat, stomach sinking in tandem. I do not talk to my ex anymore, though he tries to contact me from time to time, because I have decided that I don't want to. Partially because I don't see the point in talking to someone who caused me such intense pain, and partially because I worry if confronted with his person I may harm him. I was suddenly very uncomfortable, but very happy to have a good number of rows between us all, and the darkness of the theater to hide in as the show began.
The show was profound. I knew it would be good from the part that I had heard, but to have a much longer version presented was truly amazing. From what we were told the show was presented in L.A. to a crowd of about 80-100 people at a time, a small theater. This is a 2,800 seat theater, and I swear Julia was slightly taken aback at first by the size of the response from the audience. Her timing was quickly adjusted to keep her words from being drowned out by the laughter, and I think it says a lot that a show about denying religion and god was filled with laughter.
After the show Ira Glass and Julia Sweeney had a little chat on stage for us all. A Jewish atheist on one side, and a Catholic pseudo agnostic who still sometimes goes to masses on the other, both with opinions, and those opinions being aired on stage. My impression of those opinions can be summed up simply as "this is a topic who's time has come, we need to all talk like this more often," but that is merely what I took away from what I saw. The more visceral fact was that I was sitting between the worst event in my life, an event that continues to cause me problems and will probably continue to for some time, and I was watching an event that, while perhaps "life altering" is much too far, as my life was put on the godless track long ago, "life affirming" is definitely a phrase I would use. Sitting between my past I was staring at the future, staring at something I could believe in while releasing and rejecting that thing that had shaken my beliefs to the core.
At both the intermission and after the show, I avoided the ex's, who were all grouped up together with their respective dates, since they are all friends now. They were looking for me, I even saw one point at me from the balcony over the lobby as I walked up the stairs pretending I didn't know exactly where they were. I have no doubt that they would have hugged and hi-ed me (all except the one to whom I do not exist), the standard "how are you??" would be asked, and I would be expected to respond. After the show, and all the wonderful things said on that stage (things that ironically got me in quite a bit of trouble for saying myself in those bad years) I had no desire to ruin the night by doing something rash. So I left the theater by a side door, and walked out into a godless rain, happy in the knowledge that no "greater force" was prompting me to "turn the other cheek", or "love thy enemy as yourself", but that I could turn my back on that past and look contently into a much nicer future.
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