Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You

But once a year is probably okay, too

The title of this post is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. Or at least that’s what the internet tells me, which means there’s a 50% chance of that being not true. I once saw Tony Montana’s Scarface line, “All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don't break them for NO ONE” attributed to Bishop Desmond Tutu on a Twitter post, so who really knows.

But I like the Roosevelt quote a lot because it’s a reminder to step out of your comfort zone. That’s especially important in midlife when it can be tempting to just do the same ol same ol every day and not challenge yourself. You may be saying, “But I do switch it up a lot! For example, last night I streamed Dateline NBC at 7pm instead of my usual 8pm!” Sorry, but that’s not exactly what Mrs. Roosevelt meant. Eleanor wants you quaking.

I confess that I don’t do one scary thing a day, besides reading the news, which is the obvious joke, but this month I’ll be doing two frightening things. Things that I’m forcing myself to participate in because they are way out of my comfort zone, and I’m an idiot that believes in “personal growth.” Now I’m kind of thinking that “personal diminishment” may not be so bad.

The first of my scary activities is to hopefully get on stage and perform stand-up comedy at the Erma Bombeck Conference’s open mic. I’ve surprisingly never done stand-up before, but I’ve always wanted to try. And an audience of humor writers in a Catholic university’s ballroom with circulating nuns is a lot less intimidating than being heckled by J6 patriots at Joe Rogan’s club in Austin.

It’ll look something like this except I’ll be crying. This is when I hosted a satire show last fall and wore pants I now regret.

I’ve actually written stand-up comedy before, notably for a household name level actor who performed it in a televised show, and less notably for my husband Chris. He brings that up a lot. You see, when he went to Roswell, New Mexico to talk to a group of professionals about marketing, I proudly gave him the opening line to his presentation:

“Good morning! I just flew into Roswell on a government-issused weather balloon, and boy was that a rough landing!”

It was then so quiet in the room that he could hear his own heartbeat.

“You just delivered it wrong,” I said, when he called to rant about how much it bombed, “I can’t be held responsible.”

Because he’s a wonderful husband, he not only forgave me, he tried that line again when he went to another presentation in Roswell. Same result. He also heard someone in the back groan, “Jeezus, make it stop.” Obviously it’s not my fault that the Roswellians are all secret aliens with no sense of humor.

I’m not going to include that killer joke in my stand-up debut but only because I’ll be in Dayton, Ohio and Roswell humor won’t land there even with me delivering it. However, Dayton is the home to the Wright Brothers Museum, so maybe I could try this: “I wonder if Orville and Wilbur knew when they invented the airplane in 1903 that one day I’d be 30,000 feet in the air watching a man clip his toenails into a barf bag!”

I’ll work on it.

I’ve been the the UFO Museum in Roswell, TWICE.

The second thing that I’m scared to do but signed up for anyway is I’m attending Adult Summer Camp for a weekend. It seemed like a good idea at the time because I’d just watched Meatballs for the 100th time and was feeling nostalgic, but now I’m a bit worried. Especially since the packing list said to “bring an adult animal onesie for breakfast!” On the plus side, the bar is open 24 hours so I may win the camp award for drunkest camel.

No.

The good news is that I’m writing about the adult summer camp for a magazine, so there’s no worry at all that I won’t get enough good material. I could probably get a book out of this shit. I mean, we’re going to have theme nights that they’ll tell us about soon so we can “costume shop!” Dear lord, what was I thinking. My camp letters home to my parents will probably be written in red wine and Xanax. Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, Here I am at Camp SEND ME A MOTHERFOKKING UBER NOW.

Actually, that’s not so far off from what my son Sam sent home from camp when he was 10. Or what I sent home from Camp Cormorant in 1978 after the counselors made us do a synchronized swimming performance of Grease in the lake. I still feel bad for the girl that had to play Danny Zuko and swim in a leather jacket. That is not a joke, which anyone that went to camp in the 70’s knows full well because teenage counselors were high that entire decade.

So wish me luck, and stay tuned to hear if I survive. This one’s for you, Eleanor.

Thanks for reading!

—Wendi