(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

IF YOU could enter my mind this evening before my first scheduled speech, what would you encounter? Perhaps a great deal that would surprise you. I am sure you would find much that would amuse you. Perhaps a thing or two that might shock you! Would you be scared? “Should I be?” you ask. No. I was just playing with you! You know me! Come on! Enter my mind! Just watch your step and don’t trip over anything! It’s a little cluttered in spots!

Well, tonight it seems that the old mind is experiencing a little anxiety. That’s why there’s so much static in the air. Anxiety about the bills, the kids, the ex-wife, the web projects. Anxiety about being anxious. It all makes one a little jumpy, a little tense.

Writing helps though. You watch as the creativity starts to make its way out into the hallways here. It tends to brush away the cobwebs and the dust. It tidies up some of the clutter. It makes room for larger and prettier things. Ah! The creativity! Refreshing as a spring rain! Enlivening as the encouragement of an old friend! Sometimes, simply sitting down and writing alleviates a good deal of the stress of the day.

YOU ASK if I’m anxious about tomorrow’s speech. Now that you are inside my mind, I suppose I cannot hide too much from you! Of course I am nervous about the speech! I feel so unprepared! The old fears jump out from some of these closets. “What if you get one minute into the speech and lose your train of thought?” “What if you say something funny but no one laughs?” “What if you get your timing all messed up and don’t finish within six minutes?” “What if you trip and smash your nose on the steps when they introduce you?” “Remember SECOND GRADE??”

Oh! I knew that old fear would sticks its ugly face out! I’ve been waiting for that one! You know what? Maybe one of the biggest reasons for wanting to speak in public is to pound on that ugly old fear and send him crying to his momma! The best way to overcome a fear is to confront it and take action in spite of it!

I see the puzzled look on your face. Let me tell you a story.

WAY BACK in second grade at Alpha Elementary School, we were assigned one of our very first book reports. No problem! Even at that age, I loved to read and write. In fact, as soon as I could spell my name I was writing it everywhere! My mom used to say, “You would write on your ‘rear end’ if you could reach it!” (Not her exact words! That sentence was edited out of respect for the general readership. Although, I did use a rather crude word in my last entry. Didn’t I? Anyway…) I wrote with anything- pen, pencil, crayon, fabric marking wheel! That’s right! Before I entered kindergarten, my name was everywhere! Walls! Paper! Books! Even etched into my wooden dresser by the nifty marking wheel! “SAMMY SNYDER” left his signature, like a tomcat marking his territory! Boy was my mom pissed!

But where was I? Oh, yes, second grade. Though the research and writing of the report was not an issue, there was a catch. We had to read our reports in front of the entire class! No icebreaker speeches to get you started! It was sink or swim! On report day, you were put on the spot in front of the whole stinking, rotten, jeering second grade class in all of their immaturity! You were fed to the sharks!

I do not remember if we went alphabetically on the day the reports were read. I just remember sitting in my seat and being overwhelmed by the anxiety of it all. My goodness! It felt like an eternity of waiting and fearing, sweating and wishing that the school would blow up! But my turn came.

“Sammy Snyder, won’t you come up now and read your report for us?” asked the ever lovely Mrs. Yates.

As in a dream, I made my way to the front of the class, disconnected from my body and deaf to all but the whispers of my anxieties. I stood and looked at the class. I don’t remember most of their names now. But I still see their faces. All was in slow motion like a scene from a movie. Somehow I managed to begin speaking. “My report is on bats. Bats are the only flying mammals. Bats…. Bats….. Bats……”

Tragedy.

Due to my fear of public speaking at the age of seven, I lacked even the courage to ask dear Mrs. Yates for permission to use the toilet before my turn to speak arrived. Just a few sentences into the report, the stress found my weakness- my bladder! Quickly the dark wetness spread from my crotch, rushed down my pant legs, and formed a circular spot on the carpet. No man is an island? Let me tell you, I stood there an island surrounded by urine and seven-year-old laughter! I felt helpless like a man washed up on the shores of an isle of insane laughing monkeys! Surely, in their hysteria they would have led me to the heights and shoved me off the cliffs and watched my brains spill out on the rocks below.

But Mrs. Yates saved me. “Oh, Sammy! Why didn’t you ask me? Go to the nurse’s office.”

I sloshed my way down the hall. The nurse asked, “What happened to YOU?”

“I got sick?” Maybe I couldn’t hold my bladder. But I sure wasn’t going to let go of what tiny bit of dignity I had, even if it meant denying the whole incident.

IS THAT a fear as far as tomorrow’s speech goes? No, not really. I have learned to control the bladder situation. I just won’t drink anything after midnight tonight!

See that? I only told you one story and already things look a little better in my mind! I took you back to second grade and both of us forgot our worries for a bit!

WE MOVED from Alpha a few years later. I never forgot that incident in second grade though. I bet most of the class still remember too. I can imagine a few of them at a class reunion.

“Say, who was that kid that did the report on bats and wet himself in front of the whole class?”

“Oh dude! That was Sammy Snyder!”

At least I left a lasting impression! Now I figure that it can’t get much worse! Even if I wet myself tomorrow it won’t matter too much. Been there! Done that! So onward to success! If you never fail, if you never make a fool out of yourself at least once, it means that you are still hiding in your fears and you just haven’t stepped out yet. Step out, man! Even if it scares the piss out of you! Step out!

(I realize that I wrote of this incident previously in the “I Blame Carole King” entry. Please don’t be pissed at my redundancy!)