There was a time when I was so lost I had no clue why I was miserable, what I wanted, or what I could possibly do to become less miserable. Perhaps, that is why I needed to go through continued affliction before I could get to where I am now. I guess I was missing the lessons. I wasn’t able to see the patterns. I missed the point. I have always been a dreamer. I have always been a firm believer in the power of dreams in sleep and in waking. I have also been one to say, “Things happen for a reason.” Of course, there are always those events in which it seems impossible to ever understand why something so sorrowful would occur.
I have also always believed that the strange things that I’ve witnessed in everyday life are more than “just coincidence.” I believe in signs. I believe the Universe will point us in the right direction. The Universe will speak to us if we are able and willing to listen. The more aware we are, the more we will hear and see. You can call it the hand of God. You can call it the collective energy of all spirits, thoughts, and actions: past, present, and future. Whatever you call it; to me it is all the same.
It was the winter of 2009. I was lost; however I knew neither what I wanted in life nor what I needed. I wanted only one thing. I wanted to act. I saw myself as an actress in my dreams. The only problem was that I had taken an acting class and discovered that I had terrible stage fright – crippling, deer-in-headlights, coma patient stage fright. It was so bad that I started to have anxiety prior to going to class. It got to the point where I knew nothing else to do other then to quit. We were about to perform the play Etta Jenks in the next session and I’d never been in a play. I so badly wanted it, but how can you be in a play in front of an audience when the words won’t come out? 
This wasn’t my only problem but you can fill in the blanks for those things in which I do not wish to speak. Imagine a life flooded with issues and inner turmoil. Acting was the light at the end of the tunnel. I had to have it. I just had to.
I went on a trip to Ohio to get away, clear my head, and spend time with relatives. On the airplane I started reading a book called The Three “Only” Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, and Imagination by Robert Moss. The book taught a way to speak to the Universe called the oracle of the marketplace. It told me that I could ask the Universe a question and wait for a sign. So, I asked: Am I on the right path? Why am I so unhappy? Am I meant to act? (Please tell me I’m meant to act.) Will I travel on volunteer trips? Am I supposed to be an actress? Am I meant to be in this marriage? (I didn’t just ask that.) But am I meant to become an actress? I knew I’d return to watch a play at the theatre that was based on a Twilight Zone episode. Perhaps by then I’d have my answer.
As I meditated on these questions a vision appeared in my head: A silhouette of Abraham Lincoln. I guess this is because when I was in the class we worked on a film called Sunshine Over Lincolnland. The poster had a silhouette of Lincoln. The signs started that night. I went to the super market with my aunt. She ran into an old friend. I heard her friend say she had just returned from a volunteer trip to Haiti. I’d been researching volunteer trips around the world. Then, I heard my aunt reply to another comment, “I guess things happen for a reason.” Is this a sign? As soon as we got in the parking lot I told my aunt about my quest. 
Still I realized it wasn’t really that much of a coincidence. So, she made that statement about things happening for a reason. People say that all of the time. So, her friend went on a volunteer trip to Haiti. It wasn’t even the top priority of my questioning. Still I was curious. Was the Universe speaking to me? To little old me? I wasn’t so sure.
The next day when I woke up I went into the bathroom at my aunt’s house and right there on the sink was a matchbox with Abraham Lincoln on it. How strange. Is that a sign? I told my aunt about my vision of Abe. She agreed it was weird. I thought it was weird that she bought matches with Abe on them in the first place but whatever floats your boat, I guess.
I left my aunt’s house to go stay with my grandparents. My grandma rented me some movies including the sequel to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. I watched it and much to my surprise one of the main characters was struggling with a similar thing as I was: She was given a part in a play but was too afraid she couldn’t do it. Of course in the end she did it! Strange I thought. Just weird. Is this a sign?
Next, I stayed with my uncle. My relatives were all in bed so I started flipping through the channels and I came across The Twilight Zone. Knowing full and well I was about to see a play at my theatre based on a Twilight Zone episode, I stopped. The character in the episode was too afraid to leave her house. Fear of death was stopping her from living her life. Is fear stopping me from living mine? Ding ding ding! This is definitely a sign! A life lived in fear is death on earth! 
I went home transformed. I had my answer. I was supposed to act. I was still a little confused though. None of the signs told me just how I was supposed to get over my stage fright. I just knew I had to do it. The weekend I got back I went to see the Twilight Zone play. As I watched I got goosebumps and tears streamed down my face. It was based on that very episode I saw on my uncle’s T.V. Suddenly I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I felt very much alive. I felt very capable. After all, if it is meant to be why have fear? My fear melted away. I went back to class. My stage fright was GONE! No further work needed.
A few weeks later, still elated, I went to the thrift store across the street from the theatre. Something caught my eyes and stopped me in my tracks. I saw a painting of Abraham Lincoln. It was a Salvador Dali painting I’d never seen before. As I approached it, I saw a woman standing alone, naked, gazing out of a window; she appeared to me sad, yet determined. She was looking up into the sky at God. The pieces around her looked like a mess close up, but if you looked from far away they made up the silhouette of Abraham Lincoln, like a vision of her greater purpose that she just couldn’t see yet. My soul ached. I felt like Dali knew me, as though he had painted it for me, of me. I knew that woman was alone, and that soon I would be too, stripped down just like her, looking to something bigger than myself; looking for meaning in my life. I was reborn. A year later, after much pain, work, and growth, I moved to Chicago, alone and ready to start my new life: no power in any present fear.
melissamariewatson 