Fearless

Anyone who knows Bridget knows that she can be painfully shy. A bit of a scardey cat too.

This January, she made up a list of new year's resolutions. One of them was to get over stage fright.

The school talent show is coming up, and Bridget decided to conquer her fear and audition.

Singing.

Now, we all hate for our kids to set themselves up for failure, and Bridget won't even sing for her own family - much less an auditorium full of people. I don't even know if she CAN sing.

She recruited a partner. There was much discussion on what song to do, much searching for an instrumental version of the song. Many phone calls. A few days before the audition, Bridget's partner, for a lot of Very Good Reasons, had to deliver the news to Bridget that she would be unable to do participate in the talent show.

Now, for MOST people, me included, this would probably be the point where you let your fear get the best of you and you say "It must not be in the cards, I guess I won't be auditioning" and breathe a silent "whew" knowing that you just found a graceful way to chicken out.

Not Bridget. She cried and twisted her hands and dramatized for about 20 minutes. She made a couple of phone calls for advice (because MOM's advice isn't very good, apparently). She locked herself in her room for a couple of hours. She emerged with the announcement that she had selected a song better suited to a solo act, found a karaoke version, rehearsed, selected an outfit and was ready to go. I mean, that girl just got down to business.

The audition was a couple of days ago. I bumped into a couple of the judges and they both told me how well she sings (really? I've never heard her). One of them said she looked terrified.

We'll find out today whether or not she is in the show.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. What matters to me is that she is developing a very necessary life skill of facing fear head on. She knows what her fear is, she identified it, she came up with a way to conquer it, and even when life threw her a curve ball, she stepped neatly aside and kept striding towards that fear, looking it right in the eye.

But you can bet if she DID make it, that soon there will be a grainy, back-of-the-auditorium, poorly lit video right here on this blog, of my Brave Bunny - singing and looking terrified.