On living in a shadow.

My whole life, I’ve lived in a shadow. Okay, maybe not my whole life but it’s been since I was about ten. This shadow was formed by someone I’ve known since I came out of the womb. This person shines brighter than most I know. She is incredibly talented and has been a social butterfly since we were little. Have you guessed who it is? Yep, it’s my lovely older sister, Jennifer. Anyone who knows my family knows my sister. She's been singing as long as I can remember, and has been going out with friends as long as I can remember. Now, before anyone gets in a huff, this is not a slam on her or anyone else I mention in this post. I think it all started when I got into middle school. When I was in the sixth grade, she was in the talent show. She rocked it, of course. And all throughout middle school, I had teachers who had her and loved her. Back then, I didn't see it as I do now.

But as I entered high school, I really started to understand what living in her shadow and other's meant. My first semester I was in both choir and drama. I don't know what they expected from me. Did they all think I was going to be just like my sister? I had no idea what they thought, and I didn't care that much. But by the end of the year, all I wanted was to be like my new friends -- her friends. I wanted to be exactly like Amy, Katie, Isaac, Courtney and everyone else their age. My sophomore year, I felt the shadow growing. We started going to a new church and she began to do worship. All the sudden, I was Jen's (or Jenny depending on what they knew her as) little sister. Everyone knew her because she had this incredible voice. She also was one of my fours in drama. That was the year I wanted to be like Jen, Steven, Wes, Morgan and later on, Karrah, when she came into our class second semester. I looked up to them all so much. They were doing what I wanted to be doing. I wanted to be a senior along with them. I saw how others looked at them and I thought "I want that, that will be me".

Once they graduated, I again didn't know what was expected of me. My peers all knew my sister and I wondered if they thought I was as good as her. I figured they'd be immensely disappointed when they realized I'm not as good of a musician as her. Last year, my junior year, more people made very large shadows. Lynda, Court, Patty, Ashley. I looked at them and thought "Wow, that's gonna be me next year." It's like every year I just thought once I became a senior it would all magically fall into place and I would be ridiculously confident in my singing, acting, directing and doing sound.

But now that I am a senior, I don't feel this way at all. I'm scared out of my mind of being a four. I'm scared that I once again will not make the school play. I'm scared that I won't be able to sing in musical theatre just because I'm so damn afraid of what people think of me. I started to see me stepping into the shadow of the people my own age. And I just realized that I don't want that. I've been plagued with fears and "what if I make a fool out of myself" the past three years. And it's because I've let myself live in the shadows of the people I admire.

I want this to stop. I don't want to keep comparing myself to others. I cannot criticize myself to the point where I am severely afraid of singing in front of people I've been singing with for years. This isn't one of those posts that end with me saying I'm free of all that and answering my question as to how I get out of this. I honestly have no idea how to get out of this feeling. I've been living with it my whole life. But I do know that I want to. I've been told to just not care what people think, to go into auditions thinking I'm better than everyone else, to just believe in myself, to just act like I know what I'm doing and I eventually will know. Do you know how insanely hard that is to do?! I know myself better than anyone and I know when I can or cannot do something.

I guess all I can do is just forget about the people before me. Forget about what awesome thing they did while they were in school. Because they're not going there anymore. All I really can is just try and try and try and just do what people have told me.

So here's my goal for this year: create my own shadow. I want to shine like my sister and all the other people I mentioned. I'm not exactly sure how I will go about doing this but I'm going to work my butt off this year and we'll see where it takes me.