The new age(d) me?

Those of you who are following my Twitter feed will know that I've been helping out in 13yo's high school play. Those that aren't following me know now!

On the second night we had a bit of an incident involving a middle aged woman, unhappy about the sound quality of the production, stalking up to the bio-box at interval and venting her anger on a fourteen year old boy. Classy eh? Said 14yo (lets call him little Johnny) and I were the only people in the room at the time.

It was a fairly odd thing to have happen but that wasn't the odd bit, the odd bit was my reaction. I think as little as two years ago I would have cowered over my script until it was over, offered the kid sugar and sympathy and wallowed in anger about it for weeks. What I did, however, was walk right up, stand between her and little Johnny and tell her that I was sorry, I knew she was upset, but I couldn't let her take out her anger on a child. I'm quite sure my heart was pounding much harder than either of theirs, I could feel my hands sweating and was worried that my knees were going to begin to shake because Ms Yell-a-lot was not looking like she wanted to stop her tirade. However, after a little bit of too-ing and fro-ing she finally believed me when I said her message would get to the right person and that she really wasn't allowed to be in this room, and she consented to leave. (Or maybe I really did start to shake and she took pity on me. Who knows?)

I've been wondering what on earth happened there? What galvanised me into action? am I just more grown up? are other grown ups simply not as scary any more? (though I was plenty scared!). Did I see my mother taking out her frustrations on her own teenage daughter? Or maybe what I was seeing was simply SO unjust I couldn't sit still - little Johnny wasn't entirely responsible for the sound quality after all.

Whatever it was, I like the new me. She kicks butt. :)

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