When I was 15 years old, I described myself as an ambivert–a person with features of both an introvert and an extrovert—on a getting-to-know-you survey, which baffled my history teacher at the time because he didn’t know the word. My memory of that school year is fuzzy, but if there’s one thing I took from it, it’s that, strangely, performing comes more naturally to me than socialization.
My mother recently organized the old, clunky iMac we use to store photos and videos. She found a recording of kindergarten me re-enacting the day’s music class. I stumbled through the lyrics of a song about a little bird, dancing to the beat of my bare feet pattering on the uneven floor of my grandparents’ house. After watching the video about five times, she told me about the little performances I used to put on for the family and plays of my own creation or a silly little song my lower school music teacher taught us. I remember wanting to learn how to play the guitar because a kid in my class could play, and I thought that was so cool.
All this being said, though, I was a shy kid. I didn’t like to raise my hand in class. I was, and still am, frightened by prolonged eye contact. I’d wedge my face between my mother’s back and the leather upholstered booth at a restaurant in hopes of avoiding the waitress’ puzzled expressions when my mother ordered for me. For a while when I was younger, I was afraid of very specific people: a camp counselor at BB&N camp, my cousin, Patrick, and my mom’s friend, who had artificially-red hair and a birthmark around her left eye. She tried to bribe me into opening my eyes around her with a Barbie doll. They were shut so tightly I could see a checkered pattern behind my eyelids.
However, on stage, I became a completely different person. I’m not really sure why. It’s a weird combination of playing a character and doing something I truly love. Both literally and figuratively, I stop paying attention to the world around me. I’ll be nervous before and after, but never during. My family likes to joke about how I can get up and perform for hundreds of people, but I can’t order my own ice cream at the shop down the street.
When I reached middle school, I was pressured to change my ways, which I’m very grateful for. I owe a good 40% of the credit to my two amazing advisors, with the other 60% going to the increase in performing arts opportunities. I participated in the middle school chorus, the improv troupe, the musical, and the few weeks of rehearsal for the Dramafest play before it succumbed to COVID-19 fears. School arts helped me realize that I could use my on-stage mindset in real life.
I now consider myself an ambivert. In my case, I’m more of an introvert forced to be an extrovert which results in a strange mix of the two depending on the day. I discovered the word ambivert for the first time in a J-14 magazine quiz. I’d thought I’d clarify since my freshman year history teacher didn’t know of its existence.
Performing arts continue to play an important role in my life, hence why I’ve dedicated my columns to them. My love for performing is concrete and constant. It got me through some pretty rough moments and helped cement the great ones in my long-term memory. It just gives me a genuine rush of joy that nothing else can.
I perform when I speak. When I talk to people, they’re my scene partner. I think that’s why my family says I’m so dramatic. My sense of humor comes from my middle school improv troupe, my healthy way of yelling from my vocal coach, my knowledge of how many minutes are in a year from my obsession with “Season of Loves” from the musical “Rent.”
I’ll never be as social as the world wants me to be. I’ll never make eye contact without breaking it every five seconds. I’ll never quite know how to greet my friends’ parents, and I’ll avoid trying to figure it out as I go. I’ll have days where I need my mom to order my food for me, and days where I just listen in class while scribbling in my color-coded notebooks. I’ll empathize with the shy kids, knowing exactly how they want to be treated. I’ll never prefer any social event to writing songs in my bedroom. But most of all, I will never, ever, stop performing. Ingrained into the way I live my daily life, performance will forever be an integral part of who I am.
