Bounce Back

Yeah - not the most creative use of our 2nd letter in the alphabet.  I could have gone with Brass, Boo or Balls (all words in which I have thought of at least a paragraph worth of material).

However as I sat here this evening looking for something to type (Typed it the day before I'm posting it, not very spontaneous of me eh?) I was at a loss until Bounce Back flooded my mind.

You see, life will not always deal you winners.  You cannot always smell like roses, it's not possible.  Life is going to give you peaks and valleys and it's how you handle both of those that will determine your character.
The peaks are obviously easier to handle - that's your moment, your time in the sun so to speak.  How are you going to deal with your time to shine and how will you deal with that time when it no longer exists?

However, it's the valleys, the low's that I'm more concerned with at the moment.  How do you deal with a blow to the ego?  How do you find a way to dig down and pick yourself back up off the pavement to continue along the path you were already traveling.

I'm not good with rejection and this has played a big role in my life.  You see, the fear of rejection has caused me to not attempt relationships with women over the course of my life.  No matter how close I have become with some and no matter what kind of chemistry that I thought existed - I have avoided actually making any moves to take the relationship to that next level and that has left me cold and alone in the friend-zone for most of my life.  All because I don't know how to handle the rejection if I'm turned down.

However this also carries over into other aspects of life.  Fear of being turned down for a promotion for instance. Or fear of trying something new - which is the point at which I am in my life.

Over time I try small things to try to get over my fears and internationalism (that's the word spell check told me to use, I hope it fits).
I have a horrible fear of needles and that is the main reason I got my first Tattoo.  I knew I wanted one but taking the step to actually get it and face my fear was big.  In fact, I ended up passing out during that session. Blood sugar dropped, sweating like a pig, faint and dizzy and then complete black out sitting on the chair in the middle of a shop with other people around.  I don't know how long I was out for but I woke up feeling embarrassed as shit and I wanted to run.  However I downed some Mt Dew and when I started feeling better the guy finished me off and all was good in the world.  Those damned needles just ate at my brain until I couldn't take it any more.  I've got chills thinking about it.

Now, I am at a point in my life where I am trying to change career paths and my fears are strong in me.  Saturday night was very hard on me.  Getting to my audition didn't bother me at all.  Tapping another dealer out and taking their place didn't bother me at all (so I thought).  However I felt out of place standing there and trying to push the dice around.  The stick felt foreign in my hands and I couldn't control two dice to move them or push them around.  I felt like I had never done that in my life before (let alone spent the last month doing just that every day).  It was horrible, it was embarrassing.
Being pulled off the game in less than 2 rolls was a huge blow to my ego, I'd been excelling in class and here I was failing in front of a ton of strangers and possible future bosses.  I am unaccustomed to this.
They gave me a second chance at a second table with less players and I still stunk the joint up and was pulled off.  I couldn't work the stick and I tried too hard to book my bets and set the table up instead of just booking and dealing with the aftermath after the roll was over.
I'm sure it was ugly watching it and I felt like an ass for even showing up and giving it a shot. I felt like I just wasted all their time.
After my "exit" interview I took a walk around the entire perimeter of the casino in order to clear my head enough so that I could drive home, defeated and broken.  By the time I made it to my car I turned it on and just sat in it for an indeterminable length of time.  I have no clue. I just sat there in dead silence, staring off into space feeling like a complete failure.

I told anybody who broached the subject that I didn't want to talk about it. I sucked and that was all that matters.
I'm really not excited about facing the class tomorrow, having anyone ask me how it went and having to tell them that I sucked.  Especially some of the others who are being told to audition but feel like they aren't ready.  All of them have been telling me I'm 100% ready and will nail it. I don't want the fact that I failed to put any type of fear in them about going since they feel that they are not quite to my level yet.
I also am not looking forward to seeing the teacher again - she who believed in me so much that she sent me to this casino who never auditions break-ins.  I feel like I have failed her but I hope the casino doesn't hold it against her or the school for sending me before I was evidently ready.

I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to muster the courage to go through that again, but I do know that my time is running thin.  I have 4 more weeks where work has allowed me to alter my availability in order to go to class and after that I will have no time at all to go.  Then I'm left to my own devices and left without any ability to practice.  So, I'm going to have to find a way to Bounce Back and find the courage to go through this whole process again knowing what the results were last time and work on trying to change them for the better.

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to next week. I'm not looking forward to that next audition.  I went in feeling like I was going to nail it and left feeling like shit.
I hate failure, but I will do better next time.
I will bounce back - I'm just not looking forward to going through the motions for the next few days.


Also - I'm willing to take any suggestions for topics over the course of this A-Z experiment.  If there is a certain word or phrase or whatever that is coming up that fits that days alphabet listing (or a future one) feel free to suggest it in your comments.
I don't care what it is.  If there are multiples for a day I will weigh the pro's and con's of each and possibly use the one that I feel I can best touch upon.

Thanks for reading - I appreciate it more than you all know.