turnabout... take 2
so the ending sucks but i have plenty of time to work on it... but this is last years story of turnabout (the non-jon year) and um... i wrote it just to prove to yall that a geek can get a guy so :-P nyahh.
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“This doesn’t have to turn out the way it did last year, Sara. It will be perfectly fine. Nothing will go wrong. You are awesome. You leave me breathless. God loves you and that’s all that matters. If something goes wrong tonight, it will be a learning experience. You. Are. The. Cheese. The cake AND the icing. The pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. That’s what you are, Sara J. Gardner… that, my friend, is what you always will be.” So it sounds really pathetic now, but when I was about to go to my orchestra rehearsal that glorious March night, that pep talk that I was giving myself in front of my reflection aide was exactly what the doctor prescribed. It may seem silly. It may seem geeky. It may be the one thing that labels me as a full-blown loser… but I don’t care. Nothin’ says “You can do it!” more than a 5 minute conversation with yourself about how awesome you truly are. But that was just the beginning. Sure I was Miss. Ready-and-raring-to-go NOW… but is that what I would be an hour from now?
Rehearsal was at the United Methodist Church tonight. It was quite nice because I didn’t feel like a sardine cramped in a tiny rehearsal space anymore. I even got to play on a grand piano, which meant I could play with the top up and be heard for once. It was quite cool, if I could say so myself. All was going well until my orchestra conductor announced that we would have a 15-minute break. It was then that I felt the familiar fluttering launch into orbit in the depths of my stomach. Screw butterflies… it felt like I had full-blown birds trapped in the cage of my belly flapping wildly trying to get out. This was not a peaceful sensation. This, my friend, was the exact same thing one would feel while approaching the top of a gigantic rollercoaster… and boy was I in for a ride. At first I couldn’t do it. I had to step out into the hallway and attempt to collect the pieces of myself that seemed to have tried to escape from what was about to take place. It wasn’t quite negative 0 degrees inside and yet my teeth insisted on constantly colliding with each other in a race to determine which one would be filed down to nothingness first. Luckily I reminisced on the pep talk I had with myself earlier, and after gathering up as much courage as I could muster, I forced my feet to begin on their journey toward him. My lead-like legs kept getting heavier and heavier the closer I got to this fine young gentleman and eventually I started wondering when my feet would break through the wooden platform beneath them. I sat down next to my victim, took a deep breath, threw on a smile, and got ready to rumble. I had now reached the point of no return.
It started out as a simple conversation about school and music. After a minute of small talk I couldn’t stand my own nerves anymore and randomly blurted out, “Hey… do you wanna play hangman?” I don’t think he noticed the sudden subject change (unless I had been more subtle about changing the subject than I thought) and being the super cool guy he is, he quickly agreed to a game. I whipped out the piece of paper and pen I just happened to have with me (doesn’t everyone carry an extra piece of paper and a pen with them?) and put my acting skills I learned from Klingner earlier in the year to good use. I thought hard, and then began drawing the standard hangman picture thing, and enough dashes to spell out the phrase “Will you go to turnabout with me?” underneath the standard hangman picture thing. I know… I’m so creative. I really loathed the moments that followed, because those were the moments where I had to try and stay as composed as possible despite my terrible uneasiness. I felt like a bottle of Pepsi being opened right after someone was stupid enough to give it a vigorous shake. My hands were trembling while he was guessing letter after letter and I could barely read my own writing after awhile. If I were an earthquake, I would be a 15.95 on the Richter scale. And then it happened. He turned toward me with a grin on his face and said slyly, “Oooh… will you go to turnabout with me?” Heart thumping wildly in my chest, I replied, “yeah! Well…?” and braced myself for my rejection. All of a sudden time stopped and I couldn’t stop thinking about how stupid I was for bothering. Girls like me just aren’t capable of getting a guy’s attention. Girls like me were destined to be nuns for the rest of their lives. Girls like me were the girls you were “just friends” with, or who you sought out to complain about other girls to. I wasn’t terrified of the “no,” I was terrified of the laughter that could quite possibly follow. I suddenly felt extremely queasy and lightheaded. The rollercoaster reached the top of its hill and was hesitating in the evil way roller coasters do right before you plunge downward toward your doom.
But then… a miracle! This particular male specimen was still smiling at me, which was definitely a step up from last year. He opened his mouth to speak. I almost wished I brought a tape recorder with so I could rewind the word he said and play it again to make sure I heard right. What came out was a very enthusiastic and solid, “Yeah!” The angels sounded their trumpets and sang a triumphant “Hallelujah!” At that moment my friend asked me to talk to her about something (hm… I wonder what), and I was grateful for the break because all I wanted to do right then was jump up and down and shriek like a little 2nd grade schoolgirl. I managed to say an, “Awesome! Hold on a sec…” to my prince charming and then disappeared into the hall with my friend. My inner 2nd grade schoolgirl exploded out of the depths of my soul right then and I couldn’t seem to stop jumping up and down, beaming, and hugging every living thing I could see. Today was a good day.
A few weeks later, Turnabout turned out to be not too shabby. Of course, I ruined half of it for myself through my own insecurities. The glorious slow dance was interesting as well. I had never actually been that close to a member of the opposite sex for that long before so the only place I could really look was in the direction of my feet. Although I didn’t get any kind of relationship beyond friendship out of this encounter, what I did get out of it was far more valuable. It was the confidence of knowing that it’s okay to be myself because people DO accept me for who I am, and sometimes it’s a good thing to go out on a limb. After all… that’s where the fruit is.
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“This doesn’t have to turn out the way it did last year, Sara. It will be perfectly fine. Nothing will go wrong. You are awesome. You leave me breathless. God loves you and that’s all that matters. If something goes wrong tonight, it will be a learning experience. You. Are. The. Cheese. The cake AND the icing. The pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. That’s what you are, Sara J. Gardner… that, my friend, is what you always will be.” So it sounds really pathetic now, but when I was about to go to my orchestra rehearsal that glorious March night, that pep talk that I was giving myself in front of my reflection aide was exactly what the doctor prescribed. It may seem silly. It may seem geeky. It may be the one thing that labels me as a full-blown loser… but I don’t care. Nothin’ says “You can do it!” more than a 5 minute conversation with yourself about how awesome you truly are. But that was just the beginning. Sure I was Miss. Ready-and-raring-to-go NOW… but is that what I would be an hour from now?
Rehearsal was at the United Methodist Church tonight. It was quite nice because I didn’t feel like a sardine cramped in a tiny rehearsal space anymore. I even got to play on a grand piano, which meant I could play with the top up and be heard for once. It was quite cool, if I could say so myself. All was going well until my orchestra conductor announced that we would have a 15-minute break. It was then that I felt the familiar fluttering launch into orbit in the depths of my stomach. Screw butterflies… it felt like I had full-blown birds trapped in the cage of my belly flapping wildly trying to get out. This was not a peaceful sensation. This, my friend, was the exact same thing one would feel while approaching the top of a gigantic rollercoaster… and boy was I in for a ride. At first I couldn’t do it. I had to step out into the hallway and attempt to collect the pieces of myself that seemed to have tried to escape from what was about to take place. It wasn’t quite negative 0 degrees inside and yet my teeth insisted on constantly colliding with each other in a race to determine which one would be filed down to nothingness first. Luckily I reminisced on the pep talk I had with myself earlier, and after gathering up as much courage as I could muster, I forced my feet to begin on their journey toward him. My lead-like legs kept getting heavier and heavier the closer I got to this fine young gentleman and eventually I started wondering when my feet would break through the wooden platform beneath them. I sat down next to my victim, took a deep breath, threw on a smile, and got ready to rumble. I had now reached the point of no return.
It started out as a simple conversation about school and music. After a minute of small talk I couldn’t stand my own nerves anymore and randomly blurted out, “Hey… do you wanna play hangman?” I don’t think he noticed the sudden subject change (unless I had been more subtle about changing the subject than I thought) and being the super cool guy he is, he quickly agreed to a game. I whipped out the piece of paper and pen I just happened to have with me (doesn’t everyone carry an extra piece of paper and a pen with them?) and put my acting skills I learned from Klingner earlier in the year to good use. I thought hard, and then began drawing the standard hangman picture thing, and enough dashes to spell out the phrase “Will you go to turnabout with me?” underneath the standard hangman picture thing. I know… I’m so creative. I really loathed the moments that followed, because those were the moments where I had to try and stay as composed as possible despite my terrible uneasiness. I felt like a bottle of Pepsi being opened right after someone was stupid enough to give it a vigorous shake. My hands were trembling while he was guessing letter after letter and I could barely read my own writing after awhile. If I were an earthquake, I would be a 15.95 on the Richter scale. And then it happened. He turned toward me with a grin on his face and said slyly, “Oooh… will you go to turnabout with me?” Heart thumping wildly in my chest, I replied, “yeah! Well…?” and braced myself for my rejection. All of a sudden time stopped and I couldn’t stop thinking about how stupid I was for bothering. Girls like me just aren’t capable of getting a guy’s attention. Girls like me were destined to be nuns for the rest of their lives. Girls like me were the girls you were “just friends” with, or who you sought out to complain about other girls to. I wasn’t terrified of the “no,” I was terrified of the laughter that could quite possibly follow. I suddenly felt extremely queasy and lightheaded. The rollercoaster reached the top of its hill and was hesitating in the evil way roller coasters do right before you plunge downward toward your doom.
But then… a miracle! This particular male specimen was still smiling at me, which was definitely a step up from last year. He opened his mouth to speak. I almost wished I brought a tape recorder with so I could rewind the word he said and play it again to make sure I heard right. What came out was a very enthusiastic and solid, “Yeah!” The angels sounded their trumpets and sang a triumphant “Hallelujah!” At that moment my friend asked me to talk to her about something (hm… I wonder what), and I was grateful for the break because all I wanted to do right then was jump up and down and shriek like a little 2nd grade schoolgirl. I managed to say an, “Awesome! Hold on a sec…” to my prince charming and then disappeared into the hall with my friend. My inner 2nd grade schoolgirl exploded out of the depths of my soul right then and I couldn’t seem to stop jumping up and down, beaming, and hugging every living thing I could see. Today was a good day.
A few weeks later, Turnabout turned out to be not too shabby. Of course, I ruined half of it for myself through my own insecurities. The glorious slow dance was interesting as well. I had never actually been that close to a member of the opposite sex for that long before so the only place I could really look was in the direction of my feet. Although I didn’t get any kind of relationship beyond friendship out of this encounter, what I did get out of it was far more valuable. It was the confidence of knowing that it’s okay to be myself because people DO accept me for who I am, and sometimes it’s a good thing to go out on a limb. After all… that’s where the fruit is.