There is nothing. And I mean nothing.

Like Opening Night.

It's a rush of energy and sweat and nerves so knotted together at the pit of your stomach you don't know whether they'll come lurching out of your mouth or shooting out of your butt or ripping from the inside out, pulling you in half like taffy in front of the gaping mass of shadowed faces. You can't see the crowd but you can hear them, and you can feel them, and the energy is zinging off the cieling and your heart is pounding and you're jittery and it's dark and Oh My God what's your first line? The panic is rising and the excitement is rising and the anticipation is brushing up against the tip of your skull and it doesn't matter if you stand on your tiptoes because it's still there, pushing pushing pushing you to do well, to make them laugh, to make them think, to have a good show.

All you want is a good show. And it is. And it flies. And when it's over the energy bursts forth through your vocal chords and you scream and you squeal and you dance dance dance because that's what people do when they are so full of emotion they can't do anything else. When they are so full of unadulturated glee and overwhelming relief and that vague sadness that comes when they think of The End that always comes too soon, they dance. And they sing. They sing and they dance.

And there is nothing more beautiful than twenty-six girls singing "Out Tonight" at the top of their lungs as they throw their things together in the rush to see their loved ones who support them, even at the cost of being intensely uncomfortable and seeing the world through another pair of eyes for two hours.

There really is nothing like Opening Night. It's so full.

Everything else in comparison is running on fumes.

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