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Day Three Hundred and Thirty-Six:  Performance

After the show finished I thought a lot about what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I don’t think I’m a stage performer, per se, but I do think that I am a story teller, and I prefer to tell my stories orally, so, we will have to rethink what I want to do in particular.  The thing about performing right now is that the moment I look out at an audience I do not even know if they are there.

For example, today there was a staged reading of our playwrighting classes’ work and I went first, and I got up behind the podium and looked out at the people in front of me, literally three feet before me, and  I was blinded, and it…felt…interesting.  If one can feel that way.  I think I felt strange because I knew the people around me.  Weird thing about performing while blind is that you are heightened to the sounds the audience makes… I know exactly when they laugh, when they sigh, and when they don’t know what’s going on.

The thing about growing up for me is that I am putting my own work out there.  I mean at jobs you are judged on your own merit, but like… This is my own work, things that literally came from my own head, and having people hear those things and they will be judged.  I spend my whole life avoiding judgment and here I am throwing myself into the pit and allowing vultures to either spit or fly over me.  This, my friends, is terrifying.

But it’s worth it, I guess.  Performing your own work is different I guess than performing at all, but we will see.  I am protective of every performance, of my performances, my work, as proper people usually are, and I am afraid that if I open my arms and reveal my honest feelings about my work that people will not be so supportive.  Is this me revealing that I actually do care what other people think?

I think it’s more that I want to matter.  I want to make a difference, and I want to help people.  Is there anything in this mess that could do any of these things?

I hope so.

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