Caring wings

III : barcelona

Saturday March 25, 2023

And here I am on my way to Barcelona, where I'll be performing.
That's the first Eurovision preparty of the season, so it's new for everyone.

I'm sitting alone in the mini bus, while the other persons of my team are sitting before me. We don't really talk together, as they don't really seem interested in me and I have nothing to tell them. I can't even engage a conversation with my best friend when we meet, so how do you expect me to talk to adults who don't seem to really care about me ?

I'm glad there's no one next to me, so I can listen to music. I put my headphones on and start playing my playlist on. Everytime I listen to a song, I can't help imagining I'm performing it on a stage, ot that I'm in a edit (I know I'm not the only one doing that).

At one point, I grab the book I brought with me : It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover. I start reading it from where I stopped last time, still with the  headphones on my head. I guess I pretend I'm in Pinterest too. God, I really want an Atlas in my life.

When I'm not reading, I'm just looking by the window, lost in my thoughts. I completely start overthinking about everything and nothing at the same time.
It would be the first I'm performing my Eurovision song in front of a real audience since I was selected and I was so bothered of people's reaction. What if they'll like every song but mine ? What if I sing like a complete crap ? Anxiety, stress...here we go again.

But that is my first Eurovision preparty, and I think I still need to enjoy it as much as I can, especially since I won't be able to attend to all of them. I managed to participate in this one, since Barcelona isn't that far from where I live. I live in the south of France, where Barcelona is approximately a 4 hour drive away. My team came from Paris to my town in bus though, that must have been very long.
The reason why I can't attend every party is school, how surprising. To go to the other cities, such as Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Madrid and Amsterdam, I'd have to take the plane, and so have to miss school. I wouldn't mind honestly, but I couldn't allow myself to skip school several times or my grades would downgrade.

***

The first thing I wanted to do when I entered my hotel room was to crash onto my bed. I had to wake up really early this morning, and hadn't slept well because of stress and excitement at the same time. Unfortunately we had to go out for lunch quickly, to not be late for the rehearsals this afternoon.
My team and me walked in the streets of Barcelona and ended up in a basic restaurant with Spanish tapas. There was nothing I really liked in the menu except patatas bravas, so I ended up ordering this. While we were waiting for our dishes to arrive, my team and I started to chat a bit.

«How do you feel for your first preparty Emilia ?» asked me Alex, or rather Alexandra, the head of the French delegation.

«Hum, great» I answered in a not very convincing way. «Well, I'm nervous obviously but I hope everything will go well»

«Of course it will go well, don't worry» replied Ludo, the head of media, with a reassuring grin on his face.

I only answered by a little smile on my face, I wanted to trust his words, but I couldn't be sure of what would happen.

The lunch went normally, we just talked about the upcoming events and all this stuff.

***

Once we got to the venue of the concert, the rehearsals started. I didn't meet any other contestant yet, since we rushed directly to the backstages. I was watching  Mae rehearsing, she was absolutely amazing. You could tell she had no stage fright, and she had so much energy. She was really comfortable, while I'm going back and forth in the backstages, trying to evacuate the stress by shaking my hands and breathing.

When she got out of stage, she was heading towards me when she saw me. Her face lighted up when she recognised me.

«Hi sweetie !» she told me, a big smile on her face.

«Hi Mae» I said shyly when she greeted me in a hug.

«You were amazing out there» I complimented her, trying to make the conversation.

«thank you so much girl, I'm sure you're going to smash it too » she said reassuring me.

«i hope so» I only answered with a weak smile and with a little laugh, like i was trying to convince myself.

After this brief conversation, I still waited alone, focusing on what I should do on stage, meanwhile contestants from other countries took turns rehearsing on the stage.

Lost in my thoughts for a few minutes, I raised my head when I recognised Joker Out on stage. They seemed so happy to be here, they were really seizing the day like there was no tomorrow.

They noticed me when they went back in the backstages, and we basically had the same conversation I had some minutes before with Mae since we didn't have much time.

The time for me to walk up on stage has now come. I took a long deep breath looking at my feet before the music started. I wasn't as stressed as I know I will be when the crowd will be there.
I started singing as my voice and me got more confident throughout the song.

When I got off stage, I rushed in the backstages, heading to my dressing room, walking fastly with my eyes staring at the ground. I felt the tears due to the stress I was holding back finally welling up. I suddenly heard my name. I instantly lifted my head when I saw five guys way taller than me. The same guys I was admiring some minutes before.

«We heard your song, we love it, Bojan nearly even cried !» Kris told me while laughing at his own joke.

Bojan was watching him with a confused look but also laughed along the boys.

«Thank you» I said, laughing with them.

«Are you crying ?» Bojan asked me with a mocking and reassuring look.

«Oh no» I didn't expect this question. I wiped away my tears. «It's tears of stress and happiness, don't worry»

He then just looked at me with a little grin on his face.

«We'll meet some other contestants after the concert to celebrate this. Do you want to come with us ?» Jure proposed to me.

«Hum, yeah sure !» I first hesitated, not a long time though, but agreed anyways.

I'm not a fan of big parties, especially when I'm alone surrounded by people I don't know. But coming to this party seemed like the best way to relax and to socialise with the other participants.

We then parted ways to our respective dressing rooms to prepare ourselves for the concert.