10:24 p.m. - Friday, Nov. 20, 2009
Lightning Crashes
I feel pretty settled. I'm ready to perform. I want it to be over.
I don't know when this started to happen. I've been performing my entire life.
There was always a nervous flutter, but I could control the performance. I was always successful.
When did I break?
I've come a long, long way since those dark days at the turn of the century when I was too afraid of being seen by the outside world to leave my room.
I started hiding from classes, then from my job, and then from the world completely. In my darkest hours, I was smoking cigarettes, cutting my skin open, having sex with strangers, and working night shifts alone so I was lucky to see more than one other human being for weeks on end.
But I came out of it. I returned to the world so much stronger. I don't say these things out loud . . .and I don't know how many people in my life really know the significance of my return. Most people who know me now didn't know me then. The result of my isolation.
Returning to school full-time brought up flashes of the past. Flashes of isolation, flashes of fear, flashes of mistakes, flashes of darkness. When I would go into these classrooms, I shut down. I wouldn't speak to people. I was afraid again.
I place on them everything I felt in my past, so performing for them is so hard. It becomes so much bigger than it actually is.
But I feel settled today. I cherish that, because it could be fleeting. I'm ready today more than I've ever been. Please stay with me. Please don't leave.
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