A Journey in Public Speaking

I don’t know if I necessarily gave a speech or performed on stage outside of school. In school, we had many performances on stage, especially in elementary school. I remember performing on stage in preschool, as well as singing on stage in elementary school. I wasn’t much one for performing arts, so that stopped once I entered middle school.

In high school, I gave speeches during speech class. This wasn’t in front of a particularly large audience, but it helped me develop some skills I wouldn’t otherwise have had. I have the normal anxiety surrounding speaking in front of large groups, but I am able to do it. It isn’t crippling anxiety. The way that I know that is because when my mother passed away from glioblastoma in 2013, I spoke at her funeral. That was probably the largest crowd that I had spoken in front of. She had quite a large showing for her funeral which, as her son, makes me quite proud. She touched a lot of lives.

I remember, when I told my grandmother (her mother) that I was going to speak, she rolled her eyes and said, “Oh god!” I think she was anticipating the worst. She probably had reason to. I never demonstrated to the family a level of maturity for such an act. I also did very little to prepare. I did spend a couple of hours a night or two before speaking reviewing what I was going to say. Instead of writing down word-for-word what I was going to say, I found on a website that sometimes it’s better to speak from the heart and have a general idea of the topics that you’re going to touch on. I felt that was the most appropriate. I think that made my family nervous because they figured I would get up there and get cold feet the moment I looked up and saw the audience.

When I stood up, the size of the audience was daunting. However, I had reviewed some coping tactics for how to manage that fear and anxiety. One of them, which I found quite helpful, was to look over their heads. So, instead of looking in the eyes of all of the people in the crowd, I looked over their heads at the wall directly behind them. It worked in so much as I made it through the speech. I remember a family friend telling me I did a good job. Do I remember what I said? No. Do I remember much of being up there? No. I do remember how satisfied I felt, how proud I felt after I had did it. I knew that if I didn’t follow through on that, it may be something that I regretted for the rest of my life.

My mother was, as it is with most gay sons, a big part of my life. My father was never really “in the picture” as they say. When he was, he wasn’t exactly a model figure in my life. Therefore, my mother was the only parental figure in my life and a big role model for me. She may not have been perfect in her methods, she may not have had all the answers. But, she showed up. She showed up and did the best that she could with the resources afforded her. And, in that way she was the perfect mother.

Damnit, blog. You got me crying again! Alright, I need to go clear my head and get ready for group.

Love you Mom, rest in peace. <3

Take care.