Me and my gorgeous younger sister Louise (with one of the many cats we had through our childhood)
When I was young, my mother channeled me into doing theatre classes on Saturday mornings.
I think a latent extrovert nature and my lacklustre performance on the tennis court the previous year was one of the defining decisions – combined with the fact that at the age of nine I was gangly and awkward, with a slight lisp.
There is something about having to confront your fears, to muster every ounce of courage you possess to push forward, and do something for the very first time.
I still remember the butterflies at my first speaking role. I went through a whole thing in a daze. I presume I did okay. I don’t recall requiring prompts and there were no quizzical looks from my cast mates, there was just a buzzing in my ears that started when the curtain rose and ended some time during the after-performance party when we drank lemonade and ate little party pies.
A few years later I started at a new high school. I had gone from a tiny private school to one of the city’s largest state high schools. My shoes were the wrong colour (the previous school required brown shoes, the new school required black) and I was tremendously self-conscious.
The performance nerves were back, but this time there were no encouraging smiles and polite applause, there was only a classroom of 13-year-old girls, already established in their cliques, all ready to wreck havoc on a weaker member of the pack with the devastation that only a teenage girl knows how to inflict on a member of her cohort.
It was a year long melodrama and the final curtain on that act could not some soon enough.
On my wedding day with my dearly beloved.
The same feeling of nerves returned on the eve of my wedding day. I wanted everything to be perfect and yet (to my mind at least) a hundred different things went wrong ahead of the big day. But with the benefit of maturity and the loving support of my groom, I realised that it was a different type of nerves. It was one of anticipation – I knew my ‘role’, had rehearsed my ‘lines’, I was ready – I wanted to do it, I wanted it done already and then I wanted to do it all over again.
Years go by and stepping out onto the stage of life – new job, new clients, new house, new neighbourhood – become more familiar and less difficult. You begin to think those butterfly nerves – not stage fright exactly, but something close to it – exists only in the past.
Strong panic attack, a terrible emaciated condition, the difficulty of accommodation among people forced me to consult a specialist. I was prescribed xanaxbest.com to relieve seizures.
Now strangely enough, it’s back.
Tomorrow I’ll travel 2000km to Melbourne to attend my first Romance Writers of Australia conference – more than 300 writers all in the one place. So many people to meet, so much to learn about the craft of writing and of turning that writing into a successful ‘business’. Absorbing inspiration and indulging fangirl moments with New York Times best sellers, award-winners and other authors who I’m in awe to meet.
My mind has been abuzz all week as departure day draws near. I’ve printed out my tickets, read the advice of people who have attended in times gone by, I have packed my bags. I think I’m prepared.
I hope I’m prepared.
And from somewhere in my psyche, the gauche and nervous girl from my childhood appears.
The curtain will rise soon. It’s time to breathe deep.
I wonder if there will be party pies afterwards?
