I said there were two instances in high school when I regretted being afraid. Here is the second one.
My entire high school career, all I wanted was a lead in a musical.
I blindly kept believing it would happen. I took tap dance lessons each week before school. I sang at every scene night. (And I of course, always picked songs that would be roles I could play – from shows that had roles that would nicely fit the stars in my class.)
I was all in, baby! Strategizing, singing, singing, and more singing.
Before the list went up, no one had huge hopes for me. Some juniors had gotten leads in shows. I had one large role in a show that was really ensemble focused. It was one of the more forgotten shows of the season. No one really viewed me as my class star. As much as I was headstrong in my absolute refusal to believe anything but a lead in a musical was coming my way, I convinced no one else by me…
Well, me, and I guess my teacher. She cast me in a one woman musical to kick off my senior season. (And I had the female lead of another musical, and two large parts in two more… I was the only person in all four musicals that year.)
And the women of my class were not happy.
And I don’t blame them! We were high schoolers. We wanted what we wanted, and of course it all felt like a matter of life or death. I wouldn’t have been happy either. I would’ve totally been cursing Aurora (me) under my breath.
But all of the people who thought I’d trip up and fail – who thought I couldn’t carry a musical and didn’t deserve one – their comments got to me.
I’d like to say that I took all their comments and used each one as fuel to make me give the performance of a liftetime. But, I questioned myself. I wondered, “Can I carry a show?”
It’s amazing how someone so blindly confident could crumble after she got exactly what she asked for (therefore must’ve thought she deserved).
But that’s what happened to me.
I still did the show (obviously). And it went well, overall. It definitely wasn’t a bad performance. But it could’ve been better.
When I look back at the tape, I see moments where you can easily see it in my eyes that I was questioning myself. It hurts to see that fear captured on tape forever.
You can even hear me tightening up on one or two high notes, because I was thinking, “No one thinks I can hit this… Can I hit this?” – even though I was more than capable of hitting them.
The silver lining to this is that I ended up getting to perform the show again in December and again in March for various things. By March, I’d grown and learned so much. And I like to think I brought down the house. 🙂 (I mean, strangers were asking me for my autograph. So, obviously, next stop Tony Awards!)
But, all this to say, I deeply regret letting people decide for me what I was or wasn’t capable of. Fear is the worst! And it’s silly. To reiterate yesterday’s point, you are capable of anything. Anything.