![]() That would definitely spare me from any further embarrassment. I could leave and tell my church leaders I’m never playing the piano again. In the 30 minutes or so until the last song with all of these intense feelings flowing through me, I realized I had some choices. What do you need? This is painful, and I will be ok.” I busied myself with my toddler and kept my eyes down, not wanting anyone to see my flushed face and know how truly embarrassed I felt. I honed in on all of my years of doing therapy. I sat through the rest of the meeting in physical pain from my anxious humiliation, wanting desperately to make some kind of movies-esque exit and just run out of the building shouting “Never again!” But I still had 1 more song to play, so running away was not an option for me. Finally, not able to bear the painfully awkward silence any longer I loudly asked the congregation, “Should we sing the last verse?” To which a few of them mercifully replied, “That was the last verse!” Relieved to finally have an answer and realizing that my moment of painful embarrassment had ended, I got off the piano bench and went to sit with my family. “Tell me what you are thinking, woman!” But alas, nothing. I stopped playing and once again tried to silently read the mind of the chorister. I thought she might be trying to tell me there was still another verse so I played a couple of chords, willing the congregation to join me. Eventually, the song ended and I breathed a sigh of relief… until I happened to glance out of the corner of my eye and see that the chorister was still standing! She turned around and looked at me and I immediately thought “Oh, no! Did I finish too early? Is there a whole other verse?!” We looked at each other for what seemed an eternity, trying to communicate silently with our eyes, knowing that every single eye in that 100+ peopled room was staring directly at us. I missed several notes and tried my best to catch up to the congregation but it wasn’t working for me. I somehow made my way over to the piano and began to play, realizing right away that this song was going to go poorly. That happened this time and the dizziness lingered. I have low blood pressure which means that sometimes when I stand up, my eyes black out for a minute and I get a little dizzy until my body restores equilibrium. When it was time for the song that marks the middle of the meeting, I got up to walk the short distance to the piano and instantly realized I got up too fast. I’ve shuffled and stumbled my way through each song for the last couple of months and felt OK about my performances, until 2 weeks ago. Honestly, I’m barely adequate, but my church desperately needed a piano player and I volunteered, so here I am in all my barely adequate glory. That means that each week I have to prep 3-4 new hymns and be ready to accompany a whole congregation of 100+ people, trying my best not to distract from the solemn spirit of the meeting. One of my jobs at church is to play the piano for the congregation while they sing hymns each week. You want to hear about it? Of course you do. So a couple of Sundays ago I had what was likely one of the most embarrassing and awkward moments of my life.
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