All That Stress for Nothing

I just got done spending three days being anxious about something that ended up not happening anyway. There's a jazz club here in Chicago called The Velvet Lounge, which is owned by a local legend named Fred Anderson, a 76-year-old saxophone player. He has to find a new home for his club because his landlord sold the property to developers, and he's trying to raise enough money to move. I, along with my friends Mike and Shawn, wanted to do a documentary about his efforts to find a new home, including the benefit concerts and whatever else comes up. So I stewed about it on Friday, but couldn't bring myself to call. The same thing happened Monday and Tuesday. Today I finally built up enough courage to call him, figuring that I would just leave a message on his answering machine. Well, he answered. I managed to explain what I wanted to do, and he (drum roll) said he was way too busy with everything to participate or to have a film crew underfoot.

Sigh. I wish I weren't so terrified of everything. I mean, it's just talking on the phone. It's not like he was going to yell at me or something. Even though I knew that, I still spent most of three days with a knot in my chest, worrying about making one stupid phone call. And to add to that, now I get to wonder what would have happened if I had called earlier and left a message instead of stammering my way through a conversation. I even had a script written out. Of course the result probably wouldn't have been any different, but that's not going to make me agonize over it any less.