Searching for Self-Confidence on Stage at The Moth

For those of you who know me, you might think of me as this outgoing, vivacious, and supremely self-confident person. It’s all just an act. I’ve lived the “fake it until you make it” philosophy for a very long time. Probably my whole life. It’s exhausting, really fucking exhausting. And, to be honest, all that faking never amounted to any real self-confidence that I can identify.

The reality is, I mostly hate myself. I can run down the list of all the shit I hate about myself, but you don’t have the time for that and I don’t have the energy for it. Besides, looking at that list in black and white then broadcasting it to the world at large feels like a pathetic act of inviting the world to my own personal pity party. Too indulgent. . . and I would hate myself for that too.

So. Not. Worth. It. Just trust me, you’ve been fooled by a well-rehearsed, brash, outwardly self-confident, inwardly self-hating individual.

Lately, the self-confident facade is cracking. My faking it muscle is all tired out. It’s happened before. I fall into a well of funk and bathe in all that self-loathing. Then, when I can’t stand myself anymore, I make desperate, convulsive gestures to will myself out of despair.

I force myself to go to the gym – it hurts, but I’m told that it is a mood booster. It feels like progress to drag myself there regularly and “do something to take control.” I must confess, at least I don’t feel like a lump of shit. I buy stuff from the nearest snake-oil soothsayer who promises “feel better” potions all packaged up in a bottle.

AND, I make myself go do things. Big. Bold. Irrational. Things.

Getting on the stage at a Moth StorySLAM was one of those things recently. Ironically, or coincidentally or perhaps, the theme for the StorySLAM I set my sights on was BOLD on July 2, 2019 at LaughBoston. Perfect! I felt like I needed to do something BOLD to find that old self-confident faker I usually am. I am fiercely proud of myself for doing this, but it is yet to be seen if my boldness makes for a self-confident individual.

Rather than dwelling on all the psychological baggage I just unloaded in the last several paragraphs, I will just move on. Here is my Moth Story. When I get the video, I will post it unless I look too fat, ugly, silly or whatever.

BOLD – The Moth

I arrive at Logan Airport with two duffle bags. I am going to California. I am leaving my marriage.

Leaving my marriage isn’t bold though. We live in the same house, but he sleeps on a bed in his office while I sleep in the bedroom we used to share. We ping-pong between avoiding each other in echoing silence and shouting then slamming doors.

We had tried couple’s therapy. It was a hail Mary – we both kinda knew that.  Just before one of our sessions, we got into a big, ugly fight and by the time I arrived at the therapist’s office, I’m fuming with anger. All I remember is seeing red before I stormed out of the session.

Then, that therapist told my husband our marriage had a 99.9% chance of failing.

So, when friends offered to let me live in their mother-in-law apartment, I booked a one-way ticket to California.

They live way up in the Sierra Nevada mountains and I know I need transportation. I look up rental cars and used cars and even fixing up an old beater in my brother’s driveway. Then I get this wild idea to buy a motorcycle instead.  It is logical, it cost less than a car and it’s more fun.

The caveat is, I don’t have a motorcycle license. Actually, I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle. I’ve never ridden a motorcycle.

But still, somehow, buying a motorcycle is logical.

I sign up for a motorcycling class and I go to the motorcycle shop to buy a helmet. I tell the sales guy about my plans and he asks me how I will get the motorcycle back to Massachusetts.

I haven’t thought that far ahead. I don’t know when or if I’m coming back. Then he says, “You should ride it back.”

I am dumbstruck. My head gets all tingly and some fireworks go off and I say “Yeah, I’ll ride it back.”

I land in California, with my new license in hand, I pick up a brand-new Honda Rebel 500. I ride off the lot and wobble into traffic. I nearly dump it a few times. At this one intersection, I stall it, stall it again and again before I finally get through. And the road up to the cabin is this twisty mountain road. Most motorcyclist would tear it up, but I crawl around it slowly.

But I am undeterred, I will ride this motorcycle across the country.

For six weeks, I ride all over the Sierras. I start taking that twisty mountain faster and faster. I do an overnight test ride. I buy all this stuff for the road – saddlebags, a windshield and stuff I hope I won’t need like a tools and tire repair kit. Then, I unfold a paper map on the apartment floor. I get out a marker and trace out a route from California to Massachusetts.

Finally, one foggy morning, I load up my stuff and leave my refuge. I ride east into Nevada. For the next month, I ride through the desert Southwest, over mountains, across the Midwest. I visit my Mom’s grave in Kansas. I drink bourbon and eat barbeque in Kentucky. I visit Saint Louis, Louisville, and Nashville. I ride the Cherohala Skyway, the Blueridge Parkway and the Tail of the Dragon – which is this insane motorcycling road in Tennessee. I arrive on the coast of North Carolina during a downpour on the same day my nephew is born.

Then, I wound my way up the coast to Massachusetts. I put 6000 miles on that motorcycle and rode coast to coast. And four months after I boarded that plane for California, I return to the life I had before. It wasn’t bold leaving my marriage. It wasn’t bold buying a motorcycle. It wasn’t even bold riding a motorcycle alone across the country. It was bold going back.