Stage Fright.

It’s in moments before you go out there and face your audience that you know with absolute certainty. You know deep down in your bones, with every fibre of your being, that you’re never doing this again. Why put yourself through this? Your throat constricts. Your tongue feels like sandpaper. You feel like you need to drink constantly, and at the same time you need to go to the toilet for the thousandth time, because otherwise you’re absolutely, definitely going to wet yourself on stage. Every muscle in your body is rigid, while your limbs simultaneously feel like jelly. Uncoordinated, uncontrollable. People talk to you, you nod and smile politely, while all you can hear is the maelstrom in your head, the rushing of blood in your veins. The room lurches. Just putting one foot in front of another takes all your powers of concentration. You know without a doubt that you’ll go to pieces the moment you get out there, that there’s no way you can go through with this. But you do it anyway. Because it’s too late to back out now. Because not doing it would be worse, somehow.

And then something happens. You step out into the bright lights and it’s just you, all alone. A deep breath, and you begin. Somehow this is happening, the pieces fall into place. There are mistakes, you carry on because it’s the only way. A tunnel leading in one direction, towards the light. And then there’s a moment of connection. You look up, you stop seeing the audience as your adversary. They are on your side. They are with you. A smile, a nod. And you realise you’re enjoying this moment. That the butterflies in your stomach have become your friends. You settle into a rhythm. The air is alive with electricity, aglow with possibility. You don’t want this to end.

And then suddenly, too soon, it does. But it doesn’t, because there is the afterglow. You bask in it, let it warm you. The surge of emotion as the dopamine replaces the adrenalin, the applause of the audience letting you know you survived and, more than that, something inside you touched something inside them. Your vulnerability is your strength. The mistakes shrink down until they are almost nothing, dwarfed by the enormity of the mountain you’ve climbed. You’ve achieved the impossible. This is where you’re meant to be.