I can feel it starting

In just over one week I will once more perform at the Kiwanis Music Festival. Just like I did last year, but I will be trying out 2 different classes than I did last year. Last year I did Classical/Baroque Opera and two Italian Arias. This year I will be doing 20th Century Opera and Music Theatre - Open - Contemporary - Ballad. So a little different, but the adjudicator for the Music Theatre was the adjudicator for my classes last year. So this'll be neat. Don't think that she'll remember me being there from last year, many girls tend to do about 10 different classes (exaggeration, I know, but I get to be dramatic).

I can feel my body entering the anticipation stage, and I can't say that it's a good kind of feeling. My heart rate begins to speed up, and I can feel the edges of blind panic creeping up on me. But this feeling is okay to feel, I will let it wash over me, and I will still be standing here and the music will still be there.

I am being asked, if only by myself, to look to the future. To think about what I want out of this. I know what I want, I just need to verbalise it, and to accept that if things don't turn out the way I wished them to that it's still okay to dream about it. To pick myself up and keep following my heart.

My teacher suggested to me that I get recordings of Opera singers to sing to. This to me is hard to reconcile in my head. I have listened to some of these singers in the past and felt inferior to their skill and voice. This stems from things that happened in my childhood that had made me question my own self worth. But the goal that my teacher wants me to realise in singing along with these women is to get my body comfortable making these sounds that are actually very comfortable for it to make, but my mind stands in the way. What's the saying? A mind is a terrible thing to waste? I'd give my mind to waste to make me forget things and to enjoy its moment.

So that's where I am on this crazy road that I am taking.