I'll be quiet soon....

And now, dear readers, for the last question of this leave-me-as exposed-as-a-naked-clam series, Julie asked: You seem invincible to me. You always have. You home school, and craft, and cook, and teach college, and serve on the charter school board. I mean, really, is there anything you can't do? Is there anything that makes you nervous? Anything you are not confident about?
It’s been many gray hairs since I felt invincible. Are you kidding? I think I only felt that way as a hormonal teenager, and surprise-you haven’t seen me much since then. Maybe as a kid I just wasn’t thinking; I was just a jittery mass of nerves and impulse. I don’t know that I had a lot of confidence, mostly just a lot of energy. I suppose I still have a lot of energy, coupled with insomnia. It helps me to get a lot done, since I can often work long into the night. But as for confidence, I’m not quite sure. I think I’m as good as the next guy, but certainly no better. And believe me when I tell you that YES, I do get nervous. I try not to let it stop me, but there are many daunting tasks out there that can cause a lump in my throat. Just Thursday night, I had a surprise pop-in observation from my department head, smack dab in the middle of my lecture on Einstein. Let’s just say that Soft and Dry doesn’t always help hide when you’re nervous inside. Luckily, I do have an impulse to focus in and work harder when I feel nervous; somehow my courage always rallies when under pressure. And my surprise observation went well-well enough that I’m being offered even more classes to teach. I always say that the reward for good work is more work. So watch out!
Another source of anxiety for me is piano accompaniment. Since the charges are becoming more accomplished on the violin, they are asked to perform more frequently and the task of accompaniment often falls on me. I feel I have every right to be nervous since I’m truly not a very proficient pianist. I deserve to be uncomfortable, and I am, I really, really am. Just this week I had to accompany the charges for a solid hour during their performance at a local crèche festival. After a while I got sick of being nervous and turned in a decently mediocre performance, relatively speaking. It made me feel better to know that no one was listening to the middle aged house frau on the piano when there were two young and fresh pint-sized violinists on stage in Christmas garb, bowing their little hearts out.
And so to put it succinctly, YES-I do get nervous. NO, I’m not invincible. Just half-crazed, happy, and very, very busy.
And if you really want to know if there is anything I can’t do well, you ought to see me try to sing and dance (among other things), but that is a subject for another post entirely.
PS I just finished making orange sweet rolls and cinnamon rolls with maple icing. (And that is something I can do well, without any sweating at all.) Can’t wait to share the recipes tomorrow.