Awkward Turtle

Today was pretty complicated. I forced myself to run through scales today & get in a solid hour of violin playing. Turns out I'm not as rusty as feared. My mom hasn't heard me really play in a while.. and I'm glad she got to hear me run through a few great pieces as she was getting ready for work. I really missed playing just to enjoy the music, as apposed to running through songs for church out of necessity. It made me think about how things might be in the future.. if I will still love the same things I do now, the same way. I remember having a huge performance anxiety problem and dreaded auditions like no other. I still have my timid moments, but I've changed a lot as well. Every time I get stage-shy now, I try to remember moments during private lessons and personal practicing where I focused so intensely on improving my tone and playing out more. All those hours, how much effort and patience it took, and how many performances I have faced in this last decade since I started playing, how I would hate myself for every mistake made and be so upset about why it didn't seem like I was getting any better no matter how much I worked on it. I used to lock myself in my room, running through the same 6-10 measures of a song that I couldn't quite get right either because of intonation or rhythm or something, practicing until my fingers went numb or my bowing arm failed me or the tears made it too hard to focus on the notes. So many memories.. some very dark.. others very wonderful.. I can still feel all of that every time I run through certain songs. I'm not the weak, timid player I used to be, and I have to constantly remind myself that. "Jenesis, be confident!! They're not staring at you, just focus on the music. Stop being so pathetic!"

It's crazy how insecure I can be at something I've been doing for over half of my life. On the other hand, I am a naturally confident person when it comes to most other things. I'm usually very friendly, outgoing, great at public-speech giving, writing about any given subject on the spot, and flirting. But when it comes to the guy I really have feelings for, I become this total loser.. complete dork.. who babbles about nonsense.. it's like I don't even know who I am anymore when he's around. I can go out on a dinner-date with a guy I'm not really interested in, hold very interesting, enjoyable conversation with him, make him smile/laugh and be comfortable with me, and be attractive. When I go on a date with a guy I truly like, I'm a mess! Suddenly I'm really clumsy, walking into doors or bumping into tables or tripping over flat surfaces. I tend to talk faster, about things he probably can't even relate to, understand, or care about. I get nervous.. and start telling super corny jokes. Well, I tell corny jokes even when I'm not nervous, so I guess that's okay. Overall I just tend to make things more awkward with my own awkwardness. Weak! Then I feel really stupid afterwards, guessing that any chance I had at impressing him not only died, but probably even made him re-think why he even asked me out. I must seem like such a strange girl. Why should he give me a second chance when my first impression should be enough to scare away any guy with decent taste. Usually after a bad night like that, you can find me locked up in my room, hitting my head against a pillow and occasionally just burying my face there, trying to be invisible, because that's better than having to remember what he probably saw of me. Fail, fail, fail.

Josh pointed something important out about my blogs: it makes it too easy for any guy who's waiting for a chance with me to just read through my blogs and pretend to be what I deemed "the perfect guy." He's concerned I might fall for the next fake guy who tries. This happened to me before when I thought I had met my soul mate, but it turned out that the guy had just done his research really well, going around asking my friends things about me, completely getting me with having all of these similar interests. Oh, how naive I was back in high school. I think I got better at figuring out when a guy's being fake with me now though. I hope so. Turns out I'm really good at making myself vulnerable, but I'm being me. Sure, it would be wiser to be more guarded and less-trusting, but then I wouldn't be me. I had one of the best hangouts of the semester today with one of my guy best friends. It was so refreshing to just be out with a guy who has no other intentions than spending quality time catching up on how we're both doing, supporting and comforting each other with the bad stuff that's been discouraging us, and not having to think about anything really. Just being there, in the present moment. Enjoying each other's company, a simple relationship that doesn't need to be further analyzed. Oh how I wish I could be and act the same way when I'm around the guy I'm crushing on. Why can't life be that simple!? I saw one of my ex's tonight, and being the immature 24yr. old he is, the moment we both made eye contact, he left. On a better note, I got to see a ton of familiar faces I haven't seen since summer. Again, it was too easy to be comfortable with all the guys there because I don't see any of them as more than friends. The one guy I'm trying to attract I can't even hold a normal conversation with. What's wrong with me? =( Okay, don't answer that question because I know it's a lot of things.. Sigh. You know what would be awesome? What if all the things I've been dreading over and over-thought about turned out to come off as okay to him? What if he found my awkwardness as just shyness and found it likeable? What if my flaws were what he found most attractive? Ok, ok.. I'll admit it's a long shot, but a girl can dream right?

-Jenesis