Ouch! That was my self-esteem you just stepped on!

ARRRRRRRRRRGH.

Had the most confidence robbing day of my life today at church...will someone please please invent a brainwasher and wash it out of my memory...please!!

By way of introduction, I am fully and utterly aware that I am under absolutely NO CIRCUMSTANCES a fantastic keyboard player. I know that. At best, and realistically, I'd say I was adequate. I mean, I can't/don't do anything fancy. What I do play sounds ok and I'm more or less happy with that. (Actually, I'm not happy with it and I do realise that I need to ramp up my skills a bit for the purposes of writing songs that don't all sound the same, but that's another story.) I also know that out of all the keys players at church in the band, I'm probably the worst. I am aware of that. Like I said, I'm pretty much only adequate...but I do my best, and do what I do do as an act of worship.

But bugger me, today was just awful.

I was playing first keys for this worship-leader-who-shall-remain-nameless (but if you know anything about me playing in band, you'll know who I mean) this morning. The worship-leader-who-shall-remain-nameless (WLWSRN for short!) is a perfectionist and an excellent musician in his own right. I find him totally intimidating and he scares the pants off me because he's always coming up to me when I'm playing for him and shoo-ing me off the keyboard to play it how he wants it to sound. (And of course, me being only-adequate me, I can't make it sound like that. It must be really frustrating for him.) WLWSRN is also the only leader who ever has a problem with me. (Well, actually to be fair, he usually has a problem with most musos. I don't know why the ministry co-ordinators don't just allocate him the best musos to put EVERYONE out of their misery =p.)

Aaaanywayz, in this morning's practice, we get up to this fast song which he tells me I'm dragging on (in front of everyone of course. In fact, he came up to me to tell me...in front of everyone.) I do my best to pick it up...however, according to him, I'm still dragging (and I guess he would know since he has me in his in-ear foldback). At this point the WLWSRN comes up to me and tells me to let the other dude who was playing 2nd keys play the song. So the other dude, some what bemusedly swaps with me, and off we go again.

Now I know it doesn't seem like much, but for me...it was so confidence destroying. It's not that he said it in an nasty way or anything. But I already know I'm s**thouse compared to the other keys players, and I suppose this just made it absolutely plain and certain! Of course I took it with (what I hope was) grace and good humour. But inside I wanted to curl up into a ball and die, and it was really really hard to play and worship God after that.

And, to compound the matter, we happened to get an opportunity to jam after the service ended. Which, in view of my lack of skill, was painful and just made everything worse. And, add to all of that, I think I'm in the throes of PMS, which makes me that much more fragile, so this morning I wanted to cry. In private, of course.

So yeah, I'm mega-mega-mega-glad that I won't be playing for 2 months. I'm thinking I'm gonna quit playing after this roster. I originally started because I thought I could put myself in an environment where people were better than me to help me to improve, but I just don't think this is helping anyone! =p