-Erica Badu
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you will remember my blog about the lost love I will never get over. If you haven’t read it, you can click here to read it.
That great love was the stage. It’s a relationship I have been trying to get back for the past few years and it’s not always easy. I always considered myself to be more heart than talent, as my talent was rarely validated by those who I felt I needed it from back in my high school years. I never got solos and had to fight to be in show choir because I loved it so much. At home, it was all blamed on my weight, but in my mind I had always blamed it on having more heart than talent. I did everything I possibly could to be on stage dancing, singing, twirling things, acting, step team, whatever I could do, I auditioned for everything. After high school I mostly danced. Tap, jazz and hip hop were my favorites. I just never could understand why I had such a passion to do things I wasn’t that great at. So, I continued to do a lot of dancing and singing when I was home alone (I still do).
One day when I was 22, just for the fun of it, I decided to go to this audition I saw in the newspaper for West Side Story. I actually got the part of Consuelo. I had been in musicals before and loved it, but I was always in the choir. For the first time ever, I had a character with a name. For the first time ever I felt like I was truly a part of something. I felt like I fit in somewhere. I played Consuelo for a year and then moved back to Atlanta. Something happened when I moved that time. I full on gave up on myself, and gave up on doing what I love. I would still sing and dance at home, but it was rare that it was ever actually seen. For some reason I shut down after West Side Story. I went on a few auditions, and they didn’t go well. Maybe that’s why I gave up. Maybe it was stuff that was being said by people around me. Maybe it was just a mix of a lot of things, but I can see, looking back, that I was in a pretty dark place from mid-2003 to mid-2006. In mid-2006, I made some friends that brightened up my world, I got out on my own, and in 2007 really began my healing journey.
It took me until I started going to IQ to slowly step out onto the stage, again, little by little. I started out with doing their annual production of the Metaphysics of Christmas, which I have done every year since. I have seen my role in that grow and expand each year which has been pretty neat. I, also, got involved in the IQ Players plays after my first Metaphysics of Christmas. I tried the choir there for a little while, and discovered that it wasn’t for me. Recently, the church decided to revamp the music program, so I because a part of that to see what I could contribute. It was a better fit, but I still felt I could only contribute very little so I contributed what I could. In the last month or two, I have had the opportunity to help out on the cajon while the girl that usually does it was out of town.
Then last weekend happened. Around when I first played the cajon, I was informed that I would be singing Seasons of Love on May 28th. I graciously accepted as my whole body began to freak out. Getting up on stage in a theater, the audience is one entity. In this particular setting, the audience was a couple of people that I’ve known for years that would, in fact, see me, again. Repeatedly. What if I make a mess of myself and this song? What if I’m really rusty, and I suck at this, again? What are people going to think of me after this (this was a surprising one, as I thought I had healed this already)? What if they find out that I suck and never let me sing, again?
The answer to all of those today (now that it’s over) is so what. I got up there with all of my nerves and my allergies and sang my heart out. It felt great. I put everything I could into it. I was getting positive feedback. It was all going great. Until last week. Wednesday, I received an email of hesitation about posting the video of my singing. This had happened a few times up to this point. Now, I could care less, I am going to post it, through my own avenues, but last Wednesday was a little different. The anxiety of, yet, again, pouring my heart and soul into something that was, again, going to be deemed “not enough” or “not good enough”. AGAIN! This is something that used to happen to me all the time, but hasn’t happened that much in a while, because frankly, despite all of these blogs I post, there is still a lot I don’t put out there. This time I allowed myself to be vulnerable and put my heart and soul on display, and it was deemed unfit. AGAIN. I took the day and cried the whole way home from work (which was a 2 hour drive because I was supposed to go to a friend’s house, and that got cancelled when I was almost there, so I had to turn around and head back in rush hour traffic). When I got home, I sat with some comfort food crying some more. I was on and off the phone with two of my sisters from other misters, then I meditated to heal whatever core issue was causing the pain and slept it off.
It’s not easy to give so much of yourself, and get brushed off like it’s no big deal. I’m having to learn that there is always going to be a chance of that, but you have to give it your all, anyway. It’ll be enough for someone. It will make someone smile. It will make someone’s day. It may not always be the someone you are wanting the validation from, but isn’t making at least one person’s heart smile the whole point of doing anything from the heart. It doesn’t always have to be a particular person. Maybe that’s not who God intended your heart work to be for. It will reach whoever it is intended for.
A good friend of mine was telling me that I was holding onto my gifts to tightly. I hold them close to my heart as if they are sacred, and they are, but their purpose is meant for so much more that my protection. They are meant to be shared. That’s why I decided to step out and sing, again, in a venue where it would be seen and could be shared. So despite my need to be great, I am going to post it even though it may not be. I am going to post it so that my heart work can at least be given a chance to make someone smile (or laugh, if it’s really as bad as it was made out to be). I know it may not have been great, but I didn’t think it was all that bad.
So here’s the video:
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