Facing Fear

My head aches a lot while I’m at university, I’ve realised. Maybe it’s a combination of bad food habits, sleep schedule mess-ups, academic stress and a thousand other things I let bother me and ruin my mental health and physical health. IN fact, even today, I was assaulted with a kind of banging pain and I could not fall asleep either because it felt like my head was dislocating and I could not do anything about it at all. That is not a very nice state of being, but then that’s exactly how it was. So when I collapsed into a weird position on the bed, sideways, hair blocking the light because it hurt my eyes, I was just hit with this uncomfortable feeling of my head being disjointed from my body.

I performed at the open mic today and I was so scared of it, so much so that I started panicking and I cried. When my friend called me to check on me, I had been crying and I felt so embarrassed to pick up the call but I had to because I knew she was checking on me to ask when I would come for the open mic (which I had signed up for in the first place). Long story short, I did not want to show my moment of weakness to the whole world. Well, I ended up showing quite a lot of weakness when I freaked out quite a lot and I also don’t think it was that good a performance, but I think that’s alright. They don’t know me, the people in the audience and the people who do matter know me well enough to know that I can probably sing better. And even if they don’t I don’t think I should really let that colour my considerations. That said, I was glad I sang nonetheless, even though I felt it was quite a bit of a waste of time. It is done and dealt with, I am facing my fears as bravely as I can and that matters enough, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Performance Today and Gratitude

Oh god, I find it really difficult to write this post right now. I am sleepy and brain-fried, but I also have a lot to say. It is this wonderful middle space where I am frustrated because I don’t want to write and because I know that I will not be able to write all that I want to say. So here is me, trying to be the ambitious child I always have been. Glory be to me.

Today was the first performance of my group. There were many problems, many things that went wrong. But then, what is life if it is not a learning curve? (how very cliche of me!) The first issue was with the microphones. I had asked for individual microphones because we all had various parts and each of our voices needed to be heard. Secondly, the keyboard had some problems so the girl playing the keyboard faced problems with it too. I was sitting on the cajon (should do it better next time for sure). It wasn’t as sensitive as the one I had used for practice and hence I found it difficult to tap on it. Add to it that I had been wearing a long, dress that made it difficult for me to access the cajon.

We also had been given a notice of two days to perform. So we had to scramble to finish the piece and we did not get enough time to perfect our transitions. It was a miracle we managed to sing it on stage. Moreover, two members were late and we had to stall for some time till they could arrive. This made us flustered and we had to get on stage and immediately start with no time to check microphones or anything. Regardless, it could have gone lot worse and this has been a goodlearning journey.

I have realised that I do love to take up responsibilty and be the person to coordinate between us and others. We were all quite shook and it showed. The beginning was shaky because our voices were shaking with anxiety and also the pre-stage excitement of being late and stalling for time. Also I had been quite sick so there was that extra quality added to my singing. There were a thousand things that we could have done better and a thousand things that went bad. I went into a very bad headspace immediately after the perfromance. I wasn’t alright, I was regretting it all, did not want to deal with the consequences of what I felt was a ‘ruined performance’.

I came back to my room, removed all my accessories, changed into confortable clothes, got in bed, and slept. I slept for nearly two hours, very beneficial two hours as I realise now. When I woke up I regretted it, I meant to sleep for half an hour because my sleep had been ruined the previous few days. I hadn’t been getting enough sleep so I had been feeling quite fatigued. And the bad mental space wasn’t helping matters. When I woke up, I saw that my friends had messaged me. I messaged something back and slept for another half an hour. When I woke up, I went to dinner and they found me there. And I was glad for the company, they really brought me to my senses, in a way.

I sent them an email later, telling how much I appreciated their gesture. Sometimes, I feel that there are many things that go unnoticed or unappreciated in the world. I am grateful to have them as my friends and I wanted to make sure they knew it. I have been on the side where it has felt like I wasn’t appreciated enough. It made me much more vocal about my own feelings and gratitude. And telling it out loud made me feel very happy myself. I did it for my own happiness and peace of mind, but that doesn’t mean that my show of gratitude becomes worthless does it?

And that’s my memory for the day.