The Annual Family Christmas Party is always hard for me. It's hard for anyone who was a 'somebody' as a youth and becomes a 'nobody' as an adult. I hear the same things every year: "You gonna sing for us?" "Why don't you sing anymore?" "Where are you working?" "You ever gonna do anything with that degree of yours?" You get the idea. Basically when I was younger I was a bold, song bird who excelled at the performing arts. I would delight the family with songs, with stories, with manic shenanigans, and there was always an air of expectation, always the belief that I would do something with my talents. And I did. In college. But that's as far as it went. I suppose the development of vocal nodes during my second year at Mesa State coupled with my complete and utter lack of self-confidence didn't help. But I digress.
Each and every year it's the same. They ask me if I'm still doing my 'music' and still 'singing' because they enjoyed me so much when I was younger and I'm flattered, yes, but the fact of the matter is I'm very shy. I sang at an Aunt's wedding once and I had to drink five shots of tequila before I could muster the courage to utter the first note. When getting ready for karaoke I require whiskey sours. It is rare that I am ever in a mood to entertain when it is entertainment that's expected of me. And that's where alcohol comes in.
Tonight was the Annual Family Christmas Party and it began with me in the bathroom sobbing my eyes out because, yet again, I was reminded of how much of a disappointment I am to a family who wanted to see my name in lights. This time however it came in the form of criticism of my BA degree and blatant distaste for the MFA I am currently working toward. An older cousin pretty much reminded me that the arts are a useless pursuit and then he went on to laugh at me when I tried, poorly, to explain that I hadn't gone into music theatre thinking I would come out of it making money. No, art (performing or otherwise) is not a lucrative career choice, but I never wanted it for my career choice, per se. I'm just... too shy. And because my defense mechanism is to be loud and outrageous and the center of attention, no one fucking believes me. Some of my friends know, and Hannah knows, but to the rest of the world I am anything but shy.
Singing is an organic thing for me. I prefer bouts of song while I drive along the highway or while I'm cleaning the bedroom, but not under a stage light and certainly not before an audience. I've been there, done that! And even though I loved it, craved it, lived for it... the stress was enough to affect me physically. Tonight I cried and then I drank. It was pathetic. My cousin - not the one who made me cry - noticed my plight and fixed me up with a hot buttered rum. Things started to get better and then I found my nice little niche of teenage and twenty-something cousins and we talked about everything from Host Clubs to the Walking Dead. It was pleasant for a time and then came the talent show.
I had originally planned to sign up and wow them all with my 'long lost singing talent' but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. So, since I hadn't prepared anything I looked over the impromptu cards and thought 'well maybe I'll try something out of here' but all the prompts would require more alcohol than what I'd had to drink and so, for the first time in my life, I opted out of a talent competition. It was such a relief to just step back and watch. Strangely though I had this feeling of fading. So many other talented people in the family, so many guitars, so many voices. My own voice was/is no longer necessary. I felt like the old clock maker retiring to make way for the young whippersnappers charging into the twenty-first century with digital time keeping. I felt obsolete. Sure, sure, lots of my aunts and cousins looked to me with a frown saying: "I thought you were going to sign up, thought you were going to sing?" But I just sort of shrugged that away. It makes me sad, in a way, to step back and seeing the disappointed faces of those who still think of me as 'the one who might make it someday' makes me almost wish I'd never stepped forward.
The remainder of my time at the party consisted of a red solo cup filled with Chardonnay, lots of raffle ticket winnings, and a few good laughs with a few good cousins. Happily and weirdly, I left the party feeling much better and lighter than when I had arrived.
