So Many People

          I walk up onto the stage trembling. I’m not usually the type to get nervous, but I have some trouble with the beginning of this song. I start out all wrong and it takes me a few measures to correct myself. This frustrated me, not only because I would be making a mistake, but also because I knew that my family would point it out. They always do.

          As I stepped towards the microphone, it seems as if the whole world was turning (and turning and turning).  I force myself to fill my lungs and pull the mic up to my height. As Chris starts to play her piano, I calm myself down and start singing.

                    …I said the man for me

                    Would have a castle.

                    A man of means he’d be

                    A man of fame…

 

          I grip the mic stand with all my strength. I’m trembling. What’s wrong with me? I think. I’m not someone who gets nervous. Never in my life have I had stage fright! I don’t know why, either. I just tell myself that anything stupid that I do because of my nervousness would be worse than any mistakes that I’d make (or, at least, that’s what I told myself).

                    …but then I met a man

                    Who hadn’t any.

                    Without a penny

                    To his name…

          Singing now, thinking later. Singing now, thinking later. Singing now, thinking later. In my mind, I tell myself that, repeating the thought over and over about a thousand times. Whatever I’m trying to change with that thought, it doesn’t work.

                    …I had to go and fall

                    For so much less than

                    What I had planned from all

                    The magazines…

 

          I can’t mess up on this! I tell myself silently, I’m lucky to be performing this song! I remind myself that there was another girl, a senior, who wanted to sing this song. That girl, being a senior, had preference over me in song choice. If she hadn’t had something else to do on the day of the recital, I’d be singing something else.

                    I should be good and sore,

                    What am I happy for?

                    I guess the man means more

                    Than the means

          I really wanted to sing this song, I remember. In fact, I remark silently, I still really do. I had fallen in love with the song as soon as I had heard it.

                    So many people in this world

                    And what can we do?

                    They’ll never know love

                    Like my love for you!

          The key changes with the words “so many people” and, at that moment, something clicks in my mind. I sing clearly, loudly, and confidently, like I usually do. Like I’ve been taught to do. I sing the rest of the song like I do at home, at practice, and everywhere in between; I sing it like I mean it. I sing it strong, because my beginning might have been weak, but my ending doesn’t have to be. The applause at the end is its own reward, of course, but going to get Greek food from Mykonos never hurts, does it?