Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, just keep-
Hello once again,
I find myself creating a new blog post every week unintentionally but I’m feeling great about it!
But let’s get to it.
I’m one of the many people that fall victim to… dare I say it… fear of judgement. And of course, judgement’s favorite cousin, rejection. I almost feel as if the simple act of typing these words is going to jinx me, haha. You know? There’s that saying, “The more you say something, the more real it becomes?” Both positive and negative? I don’t know. But regardless, I feel this is important to share.
A lesson I’ve been learning over the past few weeks is that I just I need to let myself feel. (~feel the negative feelings I may feel whilst feEELiNg the feelz~) The feeling of not being valued by someone. The feeling of being misunderstood. The feeling of being overlooked just because I may not have as much to offer as the next person. To me, this seems like simple grade school/logical “who cares what people think” stuff. JUST STOP CARING!?
Unfortunately, me not caring can fester into something detrimental. My coping mechanism with not caring can manifest into me painting some people as the bad guys. Like they ABSOLUTELY do not matter. People I would otherwise view positively suddenly “do not matter.” You see what’s kinda messed up there? I just don’t want to adopt this ‘hardening of the heart’ mentality that even at the end of the day, will only be hurting me. And it has.
Anyway! Let’s lift that spirit!
This doesn’t have much to do with what I expressed above BUT I want to share an experience I had at an open mic I participated in last summer.
As you can see in the thumbnail picture, the vibes look pretty chill. Looks like I’m in whatever “element” a musician needs to inhabit in order to perform in front of an audience. (audience= 30 people packed into a small coffee shop) But a picture is worth a thousand words and I’m here to share a few of them.
WORST.
MOST EMBARRASSING.
“PERFORMANCE”
EVER.
My poor past-self.
I signed up for this event being led to believe that there would be the following: microphone, amp, speakers. Now, I’m not trying to sound like a ‘Karen’ writing a Yelp review, but this information was provided to all of the participants a day before the event in order to properly prepare. (Note: I should have double checked the actual set-up when I first arrived but because of the social anxiety I tend to be infected with amongst large crowds, I didn’t. That was a my bad.) Let’s continue.
I get up there with my electric guitar only to learn that there wasn’t a specified amp for said instrument. Instead, there was a computer speaker. Just a simple, tiny, twelve by six speaker. It seemed to have had an input to plug up an instrument, but for whatever reason, the sound wasn’t happening. Also, the microphone vocals weren’t happening either. The ONLY sound coming through was on this tiny speaker that didn’t seem to have a high volume output.
I could not.
I should have not.
But I tried.
Just know, I can’t sing very loud. I wasn’t very confident with playing certain chords on a guitar. I intentionally chose to use my electric because it had a lower action than my acoustic, making it easier to transition between chords AND my acoustic’s electrical wiring wasn’t functioning at the time. JUST A BUNCH OF FUN & INCONVENIENT TECHNICAL THINGS!
Anyway, I was sweating.
My fingers were shaking.
This woman kindly offered me her acoustic guitar with a very high action.
There was no microphone sound.
But everyone was encouraging me to at least try.
I couldn’t focus on projecting my voice whilst remembering lyrics whilst playing on this random person’s guitar. I would stop, repeat verses on accident and just cringe.
I finished. It was over. The nice humans clapped. I went back to my seat and wanted to crumble into a cheese ball. I wanted to leave to be honest. I visualized myself just packing up and walking out in shame.
But I chose not to.
I sat in the the crustiness that I felt and continued to watch the next performers. The feeling subsided a bit, I was able to crack a smile and that’s when I knew: I’M GROWING in ~ c h a r a c t e r ~ *spongebob rainbow hand motion*
What made this tragic experience somewhat okay was that the person who took this picture just so happened to babysit me when I was little. Her and her husband are family friends and they just so happened to be meeting with their pals to watch someone they knew perform.
SMALL WORLD.
Super embarrassing, nonetheless! ♥