Notes from the other side.

Vagina Monologues weekend has come and gone. It's always a crazy, busy, wild, energizing, liberating experience, but this year was especially so in every way.

Exactly which monologue I was doing and exactly what I was wearing to perform it drifted to the background until perhaps two minutes before I went onstage. I had been lounging around all day in, essentially, my underwear--a bustier and stockings fitting of "The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy"--but in a few more seconds, I would be in that underwear in front of a crowd of hundreds, if not a thousand or more. Whoa boy.

I took my deep breaths, did some stretching, and reminded myself of what I wrote in a letter at the beginning of the entire VDay 2010 process: Go big or go home.

One more breath, the lights went out, the audience cheered, and I went big.

At the same time that I was in the moment, I was able to watch the moment, detached, just thinking, This is your senior year. You made it. Who'd have thought? And then, a simple (slightly wicked): Enjoy it.

Did I ever.

I'm still riding some sort of strange, big high today, several days post-show, and can't quite figure out why. Maybe I've crossed some thick line of liberation this time, one I can't find my way back over, and will be forever condemned to speak my mind without a blush, a shudder, or an apology. At least, I hope so.