Can I Deliver?

Tonight I will speak before a group of people I do not know for a purpose I believe in. It’s not a long talk I have put together, but I hope it expresses the passion I feel for the cause.

I leave in an hour. I have to change my clothes, appear pulled together, maybe even look really nice, so as to present myself in a good light, thus helping to gain their ear.

So many years have passed since I have done anything like this, performed in this way. Is that person still inside me who actually used to enjoy this sort of thing?

I fear not. It seems to me that someone entirely different exists, someone less sharply pointed, less ambitious, someone less of a performer. She has mellowed with age and now there is a milder me not needing to score, just hoping it will work out, be all right, please those who asked me to do this thing—or at least not make them wish they hadn’t. None of this mellowing makes me less anxious. If anything, I’m more so. I have to dig deeper within myself to come far enough forward to deliver.

Will I be able to do that?

There are butterflies in my stomach—as always. The same butterflies from past years? From other speeches given? Or perhaps these butterflies are the grandchildren of those earlier butterflies: a new crop altogether, even more fluttery and intense because I am older and less able to accommodate them.

Still there is a familiarity about their presence. A familiarity that makes me smile. “At least this part of me is the same,” I’m thinking.

I will sweat right through whatever I am wearing. I always have, so I choose my clothes carefully. I don’t care what the commercials tell you--- there is no foolproof deodorant for this person when she addresses an audience. Annoying, but there we are.

All this angst is so familiar it is almost comforting.

Time to go. I laugh out loud and decide to trust the butterflies, the adrenalin, even the pernicious self-doubt. Grabbing my bag and coat, I go forth. I know that somehow, in some miraculous manner, when introduced, I will stand up, smile at the people and suddenly be there doing exactly what I intended to do.

After all these years I know this to be true.  Over and over we go through our “stuff”--whatever it is--and God willing, we are delivered to the other side.