Nervous

If you know me pretty well, you would know that I absolutely LOVE to sing. But here is where the problem lies, I hate HATE to do it in public!!! Its just sooo nerve wracking and I get sooo nervous almost to the point where I want to cry!
But any who, every year my school hosts its version of American Idol, Stony Brook American Idol, I always look at the signs up for the locations to try out but never go. But this year a really good friend of mine, who is an RA and one of the judges for the preliminary round, called me and told me to come try out! I fought and argued with her for a while until I finally made my way over there, I wasn't prepared and it was so last minute, what song was I even going to sing?! I slowly made my way over there and got up on the stage so nervous to the point where I felt like I had to pee even though I had just finished using the bathroom.
I got on stage and was about to start singing when I forgot the words to a song that I had been singing for YEARSS [I'm Going Down by Mary J. blige]!!!!!! LoL! As I looked out at the judges and slowly got it all together, sang my heart out and quickly ran off the stage forgetting that they talk to you and give you feedback! As usual they told me that I needed to work on my stage presence. Later that night my friend called me to tell me that I had made it to the semi-finals!!! Ahhhhhh!!!
About two weeks later was the semi-finals round, this time during my three hour class, so I had to leave an hour early to get there. As soon as I walked into the room they were calling my name to come up and sing! Talk about being in the spot, but I went up sang and surprisingly wasn't nervous at all! Once again, I needed to work on my stage presence, even though I was feeling the song I needed to make the audience feel it too, make them feel the pain that I was singing about in the song!
BUT, in the end, I had made it to the finals round and they were in TWO days!! The problem this time was that I had work at that time and I usually have to call out at least a week in advanced but thank God my Supervisor, Jenn, was so understanding AND nice!!
It's Wednesday afternoon now and I'm sooo nervous, I'm trying to find so many ways to calm down, drinking tea, chewing gum, but NOTHING is working! then what kills me is that we have to pull numbers out of a hat to decide our order, and just my luck I pull the number "2" out!! :-( I'm sad because no one is going to get to see me sing but deep down kind of happy no one will just because I'm soo nervous. But then I start to think that if no one I know is in the audience who is gonna vote for me ?!
Well it's my turn and I get up on stage and sing the best way that I can and take my seat, I messed the song up a little bit but it happens...
Long story cut short, I placed sixth out of six people! I walked away very upset, I missed an hr and a half of work, it's HOT and people who placed higher didn't really deserve it!!
But in the end I thought about it long and hard and I was proud of myself, I had placed sixth out of the ENTIRE school but most importantly I had gotten up in front of a huge audience and sang! I was slowly breaking out of my shell and out my shyness and sang!
Moral of the story, don't let your talents go to waste! Use them wisely before they are taken away!

A SPECIAL thanks to Melissa Mayard!