Our 7 Minute Story.

Every other year the Ohio State Marching Band comes south to Cincinnati to play during the halftime  of a Bengal game.
This is very cool and exciting for any and all Buckeyes in Cincinnati, but our families especially adore the amazing band and throw a breakfast party for the band, Buckeye alumni and their guests. It's always big fun to see the marching band up close and share in our joint Buckeye spirit, our kids have grown up going to the special band party and love it. But this year there was a little space in the program and for reasons still unclear, our fathers asked us to speak... not for long of course, but just to tell a cute, fun story for about 7 mins.
Here is a photo that Mary took of Katie and I as we were about to began... as you can see Jamie is captivated by the idea of listening to his mom tell a story at breakfast.

I have no recollection of clutching my pearls...

To anyone else telling a 7 min story with one of your dearest friends is not a big deal, and since we split time my part of the story was 3 and a half mins, even less of a big deal.  

But since speaking in front of a group makes me a nervous wreck... I was pretty much a mess. 

Katie insists that she was equally as nervous, but I don't believe it...since she is forever super chill and coolio.  

So in the weeks leading up to our talk, I did my best to rope everyone in my world into my little drama and to worry and stress right along with me...but no one really did. 

Instead my friends and family told me that no one was really going to listen or care and it didn't matter what I was going to say as long as we didn't take too long. 

But I couldn't hear them, and continued to fret. But I also did a couple of productive things along with my needless worrying that made me feel better about things. 

I spent hours and hours writing, rewriting, reading and speaking my part of the 7 minute story and I made Katie meet with me and do the same, which was really fun. We decided to tell a story about how our teenage devotion to the Bengals led us to make banners out of bedsheets and hang them around the stadium and eventually to the Superbowl. 

While we thought the life and times of our bedsheet banner era was charming and fun, I made a mistake of practicing it for my kids who gave me the worst review ever.  

After listening to my 3 mins of the story 

a few too many times, they begged me to "just stop talking about this... about when you were a teenager. It's weird and your voice sounds weird, like you are talking to kindergarteners or something and really I don't even get what  you are talking about, maybe it's just because your my mom or something, but can you PLEASE just stop talking about what you're talking about." 

And from my pretend kitchen podium I told them that it was my turn to talk and their job to listen and I wasn't interested their opinion anyhow.

So that was awesome...but I was pretty sure that the nice OSU alumni breakfast folk wouldn't heckle me like my very own children in my very own kitchen. 

And of course no one did... the entire room was full of kind gracious Buckeye fans who listened politely as we spoke about our teenage Bengal banner years.
And while I was indeed pushed far out of my comfort zone, I am grateful for all of the kindness and support shown to me during my 7 minute public speaking career.