Life comes outta nowhere. Just when things are going well, just when your ducks are getting into neat rows and you’re taking those suckers down and you’re thinking “I’ve got this…â€
That’s when it happens. Something changes the game, something you could never anticipate comes along and in an instant everything is suddenly different.
I am that curveball today. A walking, talking, “Hi how are you?†smiling curveball. It’s one thing to be at the receiving end, you’re oblivious until it happens and then it’s over. But when the glove is on the other fist? Fahk… that shit is too intense.
Perspective is everything in moments like these. You dig deep to find something you’ve done before that scared the fuck out of you and you realise what a walk in the park this is going to be in comparison. You can do this, everything is going to be fine…
God help you if you dig deep and come up with nothing. Then all that’s left to do is man up, slap yourself a few times hard in the face and get it over and done with.
In this particular instance I’m lucky, I’ve got a wealth of terrifying shit I’ve done before to draw from so I’ll be ok.
And if that fails, I’ve always got Macbeth to fall back on and that great and terrible exchange between Macbeth and his Lady when they’re debating the murder of King Duncan that I read once and never forgot:
Macbeth: And if we should fail?
Lady Macbeth: We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place, and we’ll not fail.
And that’s all there is to it.
Screw your courage to the sticking place.
And drive that dagger through the King’s heart…
-ST
