before a live audience

i kind of get why stand-up comics do what they do. i've seen them interviewed on tv before, and they say stuff like, "i love the rush i get from making people laugh," or "there's such a different energy when you have an audience. you feed off them, and it makes your performance better." and i was kind of like, whatever. i've performed before and the only energy i feel is nervous, i'm-gonna-die-soon energy. of course, the goal of my performances is never to evoke laughter--i'm talking piano recitals, flute solo with choir numbers in church, high school band concerts--where people are there to show their support, not be entertained. i always did my best, but i certainly wouldn't have charged admission. so a live audience for me was more of a hindrance. i always perform better when i'm background music--people are mingling around me but i don't have to participate because i'm pouring my soul into the piano, which is a perfect fit for my mood sometimes.

 

anyway, i was reading some of my other blog to my boys today. it's the family blog, so it's about them. and they're seven and almost five, so they think everything they do is pretty hilarious. also, much of what i've written lately has had to do with poop. so pretty much a guaranteed crack-up. but it surprised me how funny it was to watch them be so overcome that speech was impossible. 

this is not a prelude to a career change for me. i'm not going to pursue the stand-up scene. i'm more of a sit-down comic, i think, if "comic" could rightly be applied to what i write. but it was pretty enlightening (not to mention fun) to read my "material" for such a great audience. i've gotten comments that some of my writing is amusing, but it's not the same as witnessing a belly laugh, you know? maybe i'm only funny to the 5- to 7-year-old crowd, but that's who i'm hanging out with these days anyway. :) 

more thoughts from the chair

baby number two:
i learned that i'm not in charge. turns out having been through the process of pregnancy and childbirth once doesn't make you able to dictate the schedule of the next one. i knew from being a mom that i'm not "the boss" in my own house, but i didn't really know how deep that went until we were hoping to get pregnant and it kept not happening, month after month. then i took a test and it was positive. and then five days later i lost it. my doctor at the time was no help. i never got to speak to her on the phone about anything that was happening, so i didn't know whether what i was experiencing was normal, or what i could reasonably expect, and i didn't know who else to ask.
interestingly enough, my sister told me that she was pregnant a few weeks after i miscarried. and she wasn't looking forward to the next few months. pregnancy is hard on her. i thought i took this news in stride and was excited for her, and was able to listen when she told me how she was feeling. but i was also depressed, and you don't see yourself clearly when you're depressed. 

one day we were talking about our respective situations, and she said, "i don't know what lesson i'm supposed to be learning from all this." and it occurred to me that we were supposed to be learning the same lesson from our opposing experiences, which was this: our children are not ours. they come through us, but they are on loan from our Heavenly Father. He is in charge of when they come. all we can do is decide that we are ready to receive them. 

when my sister was laboring with that baby, i realized that i had been harboring resentment that she had been able to stay pregnant when i hadn't. i had lost the competition before i knew she had entered it. but now, i felt like i was really with her. i prayed for her all that night and was so relieved that her side of this same trial that we had experienced together was going to be over. and it didn't matter that i didn't know when my trial of not being pregnant would end. finally, it didn't matter. i think it was the first time in about a year that i had really been able to let go of my frustration, my obsession, with having another baby, and really feel for someone else. it was a kind of rebirth for me, the night my newest nephew was born. 

and, interestingly enough, a few weeks later, i had switched doctors, and discovered that i was pregnant with our second child.