Nerves

Since trying to make a life via performing my nerves have gotten the best of me one too many times. It's embarrassing and stupid. Probably one of the worst feelings ever. Not being able to sleep the night before an audition when you're so tired. Not being able to think when you're on your feet. Not being able to remember those lines you so clearly committed to memory. It's murder.

About eight weeks ago in a class I'd been taking I was told to exit the room and come back to start a mock audition, with the express intention of failing, all while accentuating any sort of personal nervous tick. The sort that takes hold of your body when your mind is racked and cannot be re-racked.

My name was called, I walked in, and I was free. Free from actual failure because you can't fake it. You can't fake failure. We know it too well. Too used to it. Right leg begins to convulse. A mind of its own. Powerless to stop what I've deemed 'the shakes,' coursing through my veins, causing my voice to rattle with the vibrato of a much older woman. Repeating my own name several times. Searching frantically for a funny little fact about myself outside of this audition, this moment, this now. It was fun to mock myself.

Freedom to fail never felt so good. Deciding that we've all lost before even beginning has literally been my own personal godsend. Life's most certainly a lot of right place, right time, right look. The notion that there are so many people going for the same thing day-in and day-out has given me the license to do whatever, be myself, be my characters, do my own thing. So many people are so completely and utterly talented. They're so talented. So effing talented. It's unbelievable. But, you see it just like I do. Day after day someone gets the role or the spot on that team or the acceptance into a special class -- and they deserve it. Maybe you get it this time, maybe you don't, but realizing that you have something going for you (and at a certain point, we all do) is key. It's not "No." It's "Not right now." Those are different things. And it'll free you.