Chapter 83

I showed up to the Waterboys EOT with only a few hours of sleep. It was okay though, I felt it was worth it for the progress I was making on my exams. With that said, performing on stage when lacking sleep isn’t necessarily a good idea. However, this mentality was needed because at this time, exams were coming very imminently. Furthermore, this was Waterboys EOT, a casual concert. Despite all the chaos and the amount of work I was to catch up on after the performance, I couldn’t help but feel a little happy that I chose to stick with the Waterboys for my last term in school.

“This would be my last time on a stage performing with an acapella group,” I thought.

This moment was only possible because I chose to stay. 

With the UW Orchestra concert, I wasn’t even phased when I thought about how it may have been my last time on a stage with my cello. Maybe that’s because I always thought that at one point in the future, I would come back to it. It was a part of my history and honestly, I have dedicated over half my life to it. No matter how I look at it, there will always be a little room for my cello in the future no matter where I go, even though I wouldn’t know where that is at the moment. 

With acapella though? I really doubt any continuation of my singing career post university. It wasn’t my primary instrument and to be honest, I enjoyed it mostly for the company I was with. Singers are fun and music geeks are my jam. But I wasn’t exceptional nor trained in the voice. I was just an amateur singer with a good background in music. After the Waterboys EOT, I’m not sure I’m going to be doing anymore singing at all. Can’t think about that now though, we still gotta get through the performance. 

The Waterboys EOT is always very chill and very impromptu. We usually would wear just casual Waterboys merchandise and perform while also joking around a lot. It also wasn’t in a performance hall. It was just in an auditorium or a lecture hall and honestly, I would describe it as a more organized and put-together coffee house than anything else. This was great because having such a relaxed environment usually meant that being on stage was less frightening.

Sure enough, after we did a few songs as a group, it was time to do the solo acts and I got on stage. With just my guitar, I performed “Comethru” by Jeremy Zucker and, sleep deprived or not, it went well. I mean…This wasn’t my first time on stage with this song since I had done this song for the Optometry coffee house so I guess that’s to be expected. When I finished, I got my applause and felt really good about the entire thing. 

It just felt right. Performing songs and music. Being on stage. I had spent so much of my life just preparing for all of this. Now though, I was about to be done with it all. A similar thought to my first thoughts when I arrived at the auditorium hit me.

“What if this is my last time on stage forever?”

I felt a little saddened by this. I mean, the only thing that was in the future that resembled a performance was the next year’s skit night but honestly, that was more intended for skits than it was for music. It was kind of sad to think about musical expression, as a performance art, would be leaving my life for good. That’s kinda bittersweet.

While I didn’t think much of it at the time, looking back on it from the future, this was quite a lot of growth. Remember how I used to get nervous all the time in high school with cello performances? That was gone. I mean, I still closed my eyes whenever I was on stage to trick my mind into thinking I was alone, but that no longer felt out of place anymore. It was just now my thing and honestly, since it works fine why fix it? I was pretty comfortable going on and off stage now even as a soloist of sorts. If you would tell my middle school self that I would be comfortable singing in front of a crowd, I’d think he’d laugh. If you told my high school self that I would be able to go on stage by myself with a guitar and sing a song without being nervous, I would have been really surprised. It’s been a long time and now that we’re kind of at the end of the road for music, it’s hard not to think back at the growth I’ve developed as a performer. 

Under the general umbrella term of performance arts, it’s been a hell of a journey. I thought back on all the times’ I’ve been on stage and thought about how amazing those moments really were. With the cello on a small stage, when I was young. With the choir and the orchestras when I got older. Then finally, with a larger university orchestra and with an acapella group when I got to the end of my academic career. I’m really going to miss all of that. 

Waterboys EOT was fun and honestly, quite a fitting send off for my time in the limelight. I enjoyed my time there and have made some memories that are really worth their weight in gold. These fleeting moments are really what give specific times of your life flavor and enrichment and this was definitely one for the books. I will even say that my time in acapella was reminiscent of my high school music days. That’s just about as high as a compliment I could pay to my time singing in university.