I heard the floor board screech in a high pitched, painful tone as I took a step towards the center of the stage. It was almost as if the stage was alive and had vile feelings towards me. Almost as if it wanted me to fail, and fall into it with the first step of my foot. It surely wanted to swallow me whole. What that poor, lost and lonely stage didn’t know, was that I had been practicing for months and I was ready to put up a fight. I took a deep breath remembering all of my time and effort I had put into this, remembering what this meant to me. This was all I had been focused on for the past few months, so, this is exactly what I did: I took a second step.


That second step was my commitment. It was my signed agreement, saying that I can’t turn back. I stood there in the middle of the stage with this awkward grin on my face. For some reason, no matter how hard I tried, I could not wipe the smile off my face. It was like I had picked up a rock, one that I had wanted to break, every time I threw that rock, it wouldn’t break. It stayed together with itself, as one. I felt happy, not an excited happy, more of a nervous, “I don’t know what to do”, happy.


As I stood in the center of the stage, my hands were hot and clammy, sticking to everything I touched. I clenched the black, plastic pick in my right hand, so hard, that it would have died if it was ever a living creature. Out of my unconsciousness, I ran my fingers of my left hand, up and down the neck of my prized possession, feeling the rigid strings on the wooden Ibanez guitar. I looked at the guitar and then back to the loud, obnoxious, but strangely soothing amplifier. I touched the tuners on the very top of the guitar, knowing that if I moved them everything would go down hill from there.


The blue, velvet curtain, hung right in front of my face. I stared at it and thought about the moment when it would open. I quickly flashed back to the moment; I didn’t want to think about the future yet, not even the next thirty seconds. Testing the amplifier for the very last time, my guitar produced a full, calm sound, it’s a G chord. Out of the microphone, comes a voice saying, “check”, it’s my voice, my quivering, scared, voice. As I spoke into the microphone, I held onto it, it was ice cold metal.


The speaker announced the next performance, “Up next, we have Stephanie on guitar.” I could here the crowd making my stomach turn with their electrifying applause. I looked down and no where else. As I looked down, I placed my eyes on my shoes. These were not just any shoes. They were my favorite ones, my navy blue, converse high tops, with mustard yellow shoe laces! I never wore them because they stood out, but that night was different, it was my moment to stand out.


I bit my lip in nervousness, so hard that I made it bleed the distinctive flavor of rust. I felt my heart beating a million miles a minute. I knew that soon all of my hard work and effort would pay off. I held within me, all of my feelings of anxiety and happiness as I thought about the large crowd that sits in front of the curtain. This crowd, containing my fellow classmates, and random parents I didn’t even know. I took an extremely deep breath. The curtain opened.