When I was in first or second grade I was selected by my teacher, along with a handful of other kids, to try out for the part of the youngest von Trapp child in our school’s production of “The Sound of Music.” We didn’t really understand what was happening; we were simply herded over to the cafetorium stage to meet with the music teacher.
The music teacher played the songs on the piano: “Do Re Me,” “So Long, Farewell,” the whole insidious litany of von Trapp crapola. We lined up on the stage and were instructed to spontaneously sing and move to the music.
When the teacher turned to me, I felt a new and curious sensation: of being viewed from the perspective of another's critical eyes. I felt scrutinized, measured. Are you good enough? I could sense her judgement, her assessment of my worth.
Standing there on the stage, trying to enjoy the musical experience that is The Sound of Music, trying to bring forth the love of singing that I had effortlessly enjoyed so long ago, before this moment, I felt overcome with angst. I wasn’t sure I wanted to succeed in this very public prospect. It was like I was in front of a very unforgiving mirror.
I was only just beginning to acquire the debilitating self-consciousness that is the hallmark of my subsequent personality.
To get rid of this feeling, I felt a sudden urge to sabotage my performance. The teacher was looking for something in me that did not belong to me, and I was not too young to suspect that the glory of being one of the von Trapp children might be outweighed by the very real possibility of future embarrassment and pain.
I could’ve been the next Rogers and Hammerstein-inspired prodigy I suppose, but I pissed it all away by intentionally fucking it up. And, just as I had half-hoped, I was not chosen.

Backstage, I hung out with the other aspiring von Trapps. One was in my grade, and her name was Roberta. She had black hair and dark eyes, and she was looking passionately at me. This was another first. A lot was happening in a short amount of time.
We talked and it wasn’t long before she became very declarative in her feelings for me. I couldn’t believe it. She had a thing for me! I felt excited. Brimming with emotion, she told me she loved me, and that she would call me tonight.
I was thrilled! I had never felt anything like this before, in all my 7 years.
Roberta called me that night. I declared my equally passionate feelings for her. She said that she didn’t love me after all, that she had changed her mind. I can’t remember exactly what she said after that, all I remember is the surprise and hurt.
They say the first cut is the deepest. I believe that, because all the love-related pain I have ever felt echoes back to that original knife-thrust deep into the marrow of a 7 year old boy who cried his eyes out that night and never really was the same wide-open, blindly trusting boy again.

Fah, a long long way to run, indeed.