Meanwhile, in the audience at the TriWizard Tournament...
Sometimes it’s rather great to be in the audience, watching others behave bravely. It’s a relief, knowing that you won’t be watched, or scored, or worst of all, written off as uninteresting.
But then...an audience member receives no applause, or surge of adrenaline at attempting something bold, or sense of awe at their own capabilities.
Being in the audience is a most comfortable place. When the first task of the TriWizard Tournament is at hand, Harry “felt oddly separate from everyone else around him [...] It was a state of nervousness so advanced that he wondered whether he mightn’t just lose his head when they tried to lead him out to his dragon...” Even though Harry had dreamt of entering the tournament along with everyone else, the reality of the task and the expectations synonymous with the title ‘champion’ was enough to make him envy every last butt in every last seat.
But I have to think that for anything really worth achieving, there will inevitably be moments that will make me feel sick to my stomach with otherness, too.
Lately (and by that I mean in the last five years since graduating), I’ve watched many friends achieve success in theatre, academia, business, relationships, and entrepreneurial endeavors, and I’ve felt both relief and resentment, respectively, at being in the audience to witness their TriWizard tasks. This is normal. Just as Harry feeling “as separate from the crowd as though they were a different species” is normal, when it’s you they’re watching in the arena. Yes, it’s safe in the audience, and sometimes that’s where we need to be, because our friends need a cheering section (or at the very least someone to clean their bits off the floor). But it’s worth the otherness, the moments of doubt, the fear, the flits of panic to put your name in that goblet and rise to the occasion when your name is eventually drawn.
I periodically need to remind myself of two things:
1. A time will come again when people will be watching me do bold things.
2. I need to keep entering my name in that goblet.
Starting a new relationship, after being single for six years, is a bold thing.
Rocking my tits off in an airband competition in front of a bunch of very new acquaintances, is a bold thing. (Especially in a Slytherin get-up. #GryffLife.)
Leaving my job after ten years, is a bold thing.
Moving away from my family, is a bold thing.
Trying to make a living at being a dork-- or, more accurately, at being an artist-- is a bold thing, indeed. (Note the use of the word ‘bold’ in lieu of ‘foolish’.)
And starting a blog, regardless of how mundane a thing it is to do, is a bold thing. Because it flirts with vulnerability, and when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, it is inherently bold.
And Gryffindors, after all, are known for being BOLD.