However, I noticed a trend in the past few weeks from one said person I've been hanging out with. Justin Summa. Yes, Justin, you're getting a shout out in my blog. HA HA. I think that should get you a check mark on a bucket list you're hiding somewhere. Justin and my friend John Alix (again, check that bucket list!)
are fond of making up games where someone has to hum a tune and people have to guess what the song is, or, following suit of RuPaul's Drag Race, making people get up and perform a two minute stand up routine in a character of their choosing. There are various other games, but that is the one that stands out the most to me. While this is all fun and games, I'm thrown into a tailspin of sweating, nausea, and tragic memories of my youth involving stage fright. Yes, I did go to school for performance and have been a performer my whole life, however, intimate settings are the biggest stages of fear in my life.
I can recall, in third grade, how I was to sing a solo at the school choir concert and I was so scared I started crying into the microphone and if I'm not mistaken I ran off stage. I could be making up that last part(I'll have to check with my mom, Mrs. Riggle, and get back to you).
However, it was just the beginning of my stage fright. My piano teacher also made me perform for my classmates during "music" hour at school so I "could get more practice in live performance." I was deathly terrified and, sadly, tormented by my friends. I was known as "Stevie Wonder" for most of elementary school. I know you're all wondering how this was a bad thing, but trust me, I am not comfortable being the butt of a joke, however good intentioned it may be.
Then came a moment, that I will always remember. My mother asked me to play a song on the piano and sing it for her. My nerves were shot. leading up to the big day, I practiced and practiced and practiced for hours on end. But for some reason, I was so terrified that she would be disappointed in my performance that I chickened out at the last moment. To this day I regret it.
And it happens all the time. My mom recalls stories of my piano recitals growing up, my sisters would be nervous wrecks, yet I was cool, calm and collected going up to the piano to perform. Little did she know that there was that nagging voice in my head that told me, "you're not good enough, you suck, you didn't practice enough, everyone is going to make fun of you!" leading me down a path of fear and dread everytime I knew a recital was coming up. It did, however, make me practice harder and prepare harder just so I knew that I was really ready, so no mistakes would be made and I would be able to hold my head high and know that I did a good job.
These are all of the things I think about when i am put on the spot. It is my achilles heel, so to speak. I clam up at the mere suggestion of something impromptu or impulsive. It's not something I love about myself, but there it is. In drama class, I would freeze up just looking at a syllabus that said, "improvisation." I was and still am terrified of such things.
So, what do Justin Summa and John Alix have to do with this fear?
Well, they continue to put me on the spot over and over again, and I'm, quite frankly, more embarrassed about the fear that causes a wall to go up than I am about what would happen if they made fun of me. I'm pretty confident in my friendships with them,
that I could fall flat on my face and make an ass of myself and they'd still love me. Yet, I struggle over and over and over again. So this is where they come into play. I am gonna conquer this fear if it's the last thing I do in my life, so I hope they won't (but they probably will) bombard me with questions like, "Steve, name a pop song!" or other such nonsensical questions, but I hope they will help me overcome this fear of mine because well, it's just a dumb little thing that I hate about myself. And I'm too old to be afraid of trying, right?Riggle me that!
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