things that scare me

This is one of them.

For the past five years, I have watched the annual employee talent show here at work and every year I've told myself, "Yeah, I'll totally do that next year". And then inevitably talked myself out of it and felt a vague sense of disappointment each time the event passed me by. Well, this year I finally bucked up and roped a fellow employee into joining me on this mad adventure without a very solid plan as to how we were going to do it. I think we'll work it out  was the general consensus.

Like myself, Garen is no stranger to the stage and performing musically. Unlike myself, he was able to keep his shit together while I nearly had a breakdown from the nerves and stress of performing in such a manner: daylight? sober? coworkers? RECORDED? These are all of the reasons I had managed to talk myself out for so many years, but now I was in it. Really in it. Apparently you can wish for a natural disaster to strike with every fiber of your being, but they won't actually happen simply because you want them to.

But amidst all this stress and excitement and hysteria, there were several reasonable thoughts (probably planted by my mom over the years) that kept me from simply running into the woods and never looking back  First of all, what is the worst case scenario here? We totally bomb the performance and it is recorded for all of OHSU history? So what? Nobody dies. You just laugh it off and add it to a list of other really stupid things you've done in your life. A beer or two can be helpful here if your list is as long as mine is. Secondly, these are your friends and coworkers, even if you do screw up, who the fuck cares? It's not like their opinion of you is based on whether or not you can hit a couple of notes in a song they've never heard of. You did the thing and that's impressive enough, right? Which is the final rational thought; it doesn't matter if it isn't perfect. No one wants or expects that. Just go up there and bring what you've got to say and the audience will be happy to experience those highs and lows with you. Whatever you do, just do it and don't be boring!

So whatever, we managed to pull it off. It wasn't the best performance I've ever had, nor was it the worst. Garen was a pro and brought me back to Earth more than a couple of times- I really owe him a drink for that. I was sweating and panting and stressing beyond belief but I kicked off my shoes, made some dumb jokes and had a good time anyway. I was scared shitless but I stuck it all the way through and in the end, that's what I really remember.

I've actually had a lot of scary things happen to me in the last week or so. Weirdly romantic and heartbreaking things that should really only happen in teen novels or something. More than once I have had to ask myself out loud is this real life? What the actual fuck is happening right now? Let's just say that being swooped by an owl in the middle of broad daylight is actually on the bottom of this list, if you can believe that. But that starts to get into some personal territory so I'll have to leave you to your own imagination.

The point of all of this is that this week has been fucking insane, but I've made it. Through the ups and the downs and the crying and the laughter. Strangely enough, this is real life. Even the scary stuff. Maybe even especially the scary stuff. Because when you get the chance to face it, and you make it through to the other side, there is nothing in the world that makes you feel more powerful than looking back on something that scares you shitless and saying yeah, I fucking did that.