swiss boarding school

i was 15 years old and attended an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland with a student body of 1200. there had been a fierce competition for one of the 3 spots open every year to very small and even more prestigious performing arts school. i had made it through the ranks and finally been chosen along with 2 other girls and was scheduled to give my winning monologue in front of 3 of the arts schools administrators that afternoon. all day long everyone was sick with nerves- except me. i had written my monologue and given it so many times that i just kept visualizing it in my head as i went about my day and felt confident i would have no difficulty remembering the piece. all day long other students kept giving me encouragement in the form of knitted, worried brows and tender hands upon my shoulder. by the time i was waiting in the wings to go on stage, my confidence was so eroded that i felt i needed to do exactly as the two other girls in front of me and hold my manuscript as i performed. the only thing i felt certain of in that moment is that i would have precisely enough time to make it to my dorm room, grab the pages and be back in time to make my entrance. i left my place in line, breathlessly mumbled to my teacher that i needed my pages and heard the roar of applause for the first performer behind me as i flew out the door on my ill conceived mission. suddenly the halls and stairways of the school were a labyrinth to me. maybe it was because i had exited the back of the theater, but absolutely everything seemed to be turned around and though i was running as fast as i could, i had taken so many wrong turns and gone up and down so many stairways that it was ages before i reached my room. i grabbed my pages and burst back into the hallway but again, there seemed to be no direct route back to the rear of the theater. as i finally reached the door and opened it, i was met by a sea of shocked faces and a deafening silence from the other side of the curtain that i knew meant the audience had left. i wanted to explain, but i was so out of breath that i could only hold up the leaves of my fully memorized monologue. as i looked at the sad faces of those around me i understood that it was too late .i threw them on the floor, sat down and started to cry.

i spent the next few hours attending my classes in a state of numbed silence. i was summoned to the head masters office where i was informed the performance itself was only a formality and had no actual bearing on my admission into the elite arts program. i would be enrolled with the others. as i listened to him, i understood that i had created my own crises that day and silently vowed that i would never let external influences affect my confidence again.