…my fear that I was somehow going to get up in front of the lovely folks who came to hear writers read stories and vomit all over the podium.
I didn’t.
I win.
Tonight I got up in front of a bunch of people in Berkeley, almost all of whom I’d never seen before and read a story I’d written. I was a bundle of nerves but surprisingly not as anxious as I have been before in situations involving me doing public speaking. I spoke clearly and because I was reading off a script, I had something to look at other than the people staring back at me, waiting for me to talk.
It was a bit of an out-of-body experience, to hear the silence of everything except my own voice and to realize that a roomful of people were hanging on the edge of my words. I didn’t look up except once, as I could feel my arms shaking out of fear, but all of a sudden I was somewhere else and the only thing that seemed to matter were the words on the page. So I read them at the pace I intended, told an ambiguously ended true story and said thank you.
Then people clapped and things snapped back into focus, but for those few moments I was standing up there, I really did feel elsewhere.
It actually felt good.
The people who read were good, and to be thanked by people from the audience I’d never met before was an odd experience. Taking credit for something creative I’ve done has never been a strong suit of mine and writing, so far as I’ve done it up until I started posting this blog, has been a thing that I did in the dark. Sitting and pounding a keyboard is – in my own experience, as well as other writers I’ve known – the creative pursuit of people who are often uncomfortable in social settings. People who like to work alone, control freaks who don’t want to have anyone else tell them how to do what they’re doing.
I don’t suppose I am an exception of this statement – perhaps I am the embodiment of it, I don’t know.
All I know is that I said yes to something that scared the shit out of me, and I’m still alive.
The anxiety I felt in producing the piece I read was far greater than actually reading it, which surprised me. I guess I really am my own worst critic.
So now I get to feel like I’m on a mini-vacation; vacation from anxiety that’s been plaguing me for a couple of weeks. I didn’t get my shift covered tonight, but I’ll live with having to pay the back gates from Friday night next week, and besides I’m gonna pull a few extra shifts this month because I’ve taken some time off.
A friend I haven’t spoken to in a longer-than-usual time asked me how things had been lately and I told the truth.
Things are really fucking good.
And now I’m off to enjoy a few of those really good things on my night off before it gets much later, but before I do I want to acknowledge something:
To the handful of people who I talked to about all of the fears I had wrapped up in this, thank you. I don’t know if I could/would have done it without your kind words and good advice, and for that, I am truly grateful.
And with that, I’m out.
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
