Jitters

I had never really been the girl to get all nervious and sweaty palmed over having to talk in front of the class, or when I gave speeches at church. What can I say? I'm the rambucious over achiever. So when  my friends approached me about filling in a place for our high school play, I figured how hard could it be? It would just intitle memorizing a few lines and doing what I do best; talking in front of people. Plus, I thought, the drama productions never had good turnouts. I'm not saying that was because our drama department is bad. No, actually it is the exact opposite. We just are located in the middle of nowhere and it didn't really have good advertising stratigies. Anyway, when I went to school the next day, the same friends that talked me into doing it gave me a scrip. When I went home that night I sat down at my desk and reveiwed the play, doing my best to memorize as many lines as I could for pratice the next day. As I had expected, it came very easy to me and at drama practice, I blew through them, no problem. Everyone was really impressed. I continued to practice over the course of a next few months and just kept getting better and better. Finally, after what seemed like a million nights of four hour practices, our production night finally arrived. I went into school early and got my hair and stage make up done, and then helped set everything in the cafiteria up. I was pretty pumped for us to get started and kept glancing at the clock, hoping the time would fly faster so I could get up on stage and do my thing. It seemed like it was never going to start, so to waste the time, I went in search for my friends. What i found was a group of nervious wrecks. I didn't understand it. How could they be worring about how they were going to do when we had rehersed over and over again the scenes and lines. It ends up that they had been doing the same thing I had been doing, the whole glancing up at the clock waiting for the play to get started, but not because they were excited. They just wanted to get it over with! It amazed me that most of my friends had been in multiple plays and done this multiple times, but they were overwhelmed by jitters, while I was so calm and excited, and it was my first play! I thought they were crazy! Until I got up on that stage and the curtains opened to reveal us to the big audience. And to reveal the big audience to me. NEVER in my life have I been effected by how stressing, nerve wraking, and glorious that moment felt. How the stage lights glared brightly in my eyes, how the hushed whisper of the crowd made temporary background music to the starting words of the play. Walking onto stage was terrifing yet thrilling. Terrifing because like my friends, I began to worry what if I messed up. And I began to understand, Yes, we had practiced an endless amount of hours, but mistakes happen. What if I forget my lines? My cues? At first I got really tense, waiting on the slip that would send me running from the stage. But as I started talking, as I began to fall into my character's role, I started to relax. I started to get excited again, and the momentary jitters.....disappeared. I began to see why after all the hours of worring and nerves, my friends came back to practice and go through it all again. it was because, being up there on stage and in a character's role that is so unlike myself, I was able to forget all my problems and just be that character. I could go through the happiness, the sorrow, the apprehenison of my role and act as if it was actually me going through those things. So even though it was hard work, it was worth being under the hot stage lights, the endless hours of practice, even the postponed jitters, to be up there on stage for those sweet two and a half hours it took to perform.