This One Goes Out to All My Peeps.

Back in Virginia, my middle school used to host an annual dance for the students. And so, every spring hundreds of awkward, socially inept tweens would gather ’round the basketball-court-turned-dance-floor and stare at each other or down at their shoes. In preparation for this momentous occasion, my mom and I would scavenge the mall for the most hideous dress available, pair it with clip-on earrings the size of my fists, and top the whole ensemble off with an Ogilvie home perm. It was like a makeover in reverse. Even worse, I would show up at the dance, talk to my same two lame friends and, if it was a good night, dance with a boy three inches shorter than me that hadn’t bothered to brush his teeth.

Well, as much as I’d love to say that these types of experiences are faint memories, now barely visible in the rear view mirror of the polished, socially graceful woman I’ve become…I’m afraid I can’t. In fact, as an adult, I have often entered social situations, felt horribly uncomfortable, and ended up staring at my shoes for hours upon end. Because my years of work in the service industry demanded a certain amount of conversational skill, I learned how to handle awkwardness with more finesse, but it never completely dissipated. So, to be authoring a blog about putting yourself out there feels a bit like my way of dealing with personal social shrapnel.

And if there is one thing I’ve realized in the past 5 months, it’s that improvement doesn’t follow a movie montage timeline. In other words, by the time the next Loverboy song comes to an end, you aren’t going to suddenly be an expert orator. However, taking a stab at the Loverboy song yourself might just get you one step closer. Now, as a person whose hands shook even when speaking up in class, I would never have imagined a love affair with karaoke in my future. In fact, I had always prided myself on a general avoidance of such activities. There seemed to be no point. Just a bunch of obnoxious people singing even more obnoxious songs.

At least, that’s what I thought. That is, until I reached my rock bottom moment. Last winter, feeling overworked and uninspired, I ended up at the local bowling alley with some friends. We were sitting in the bar waiting for a lane, when the karaoke started. Not only could I not shake my funk, it was just one of those nights when it felt like everyone had already heard all my stories and I’d heard theirs. So, I threw back an infinitely disgusting shot of Jager and signed up to sing.

I had every reason in the world to think it would be a complete crapshoot, like stepping into a time machine and catapulting myself back to that dance floor, bad perm and all. But as I started singing and looked out at the smiling faces, fellow terrible singers cheering me on with applause and whistling, a surprising feeling welled up. I suddenly realized how liberating it can be to suck at something and do it anyways. To embrace the very awkwardness you’ve been running from. The pressure is off because you’re not supposed to be great. And in that moment, I could see that the crowded room consisted of other people who each had their own version of a middle school dance and their own memory of embarrassment, awkwardness or fear of not fitting in. Here we all were, me and my peeps, encouraging each other to look like idiots and relishing every minute of it.

Filed under Blackbird Diary, Lost Demographic |