Not So Self-Possessed

So apparently I'm very self-possessed.

Since I was like 12, I've been told that before performances I always seem so calm. People say things like, "You don't seem nervous." And they ask me how I'm doing, because I'm so stoic on the outside.

Sometimes I think that's why I'm so straightforward with what I'm feeling (especially on here)... Because if I don't tell people what I'm feeling it's pretty hard to just guess unless you know me really well.

So here's my confession: On the outside I seem calm, but on the inside I'm racing around like a hampster on speed and meth and bath salts.

 *** Be careful! I could eat your face! Cause I'm a thug!***

But I don't want to admit that I'm nervous. Cause what good would that do? Then we'll both know that I'm nervous... and then I'll start thinking about how you know I'm nervous and so maybe you'll start thinking this thing that I planned to do is actually a nervous tic or something and you won't know that I totally planned that. Yeah! I might MEAN to say "ummmm" 40 times!

While I'm performing, I'm fine I have a place to channel it all... except I maybe talk a little fast and my conclusions are awkward.

But then I finish and I have all this adrenaline and performance high and nervous energy still coursing through my body. And suddenly I'm too hot, and I'm jittery, and I can't keep the stoic front up anymore, and I just want to *do* something.

When I was in high school and it was a play I'd come home and want to sit outside for hours wishing I had some place to go.

When I was in college I would gather up some friends and go find a park and get on a swing and go as high as I could.

It was weird to have a "performance" in the morning and have the rest of my day to go about.

So now, I get lots and lots of reassurance from my friends... and let someone talk to me about something delightfully mundane so that I don't run around the sanctuary area like the aforementioned hampster, and I laugh, and I go out to eat, and I look at a table over-flowing with my friends eating and talking and laughing- sometimes even singing... and I think how incredibly blessed I am. Some people don't have friends like I do.

I think that this morning went really well. My friends tell me so and some people who I barely knew complimented me, too. All I really wanted was to share how much God has done for me.. and how much I think He wants to do for all of us.

And tomorrow starts the first day of the rest of my life... how's that for auspicious?