Back to Bound by Guilt
I used to run the local IT Department for a company that was based in Ireland. One year they decided to hold a Departmental Retreat, and so they flew us to Ireland to meet with our Irish counterparts, and then took all of us up into the mountains of Carlingford, for a week of team-building exercises and similar activities. During the evenings, we would go to pubs, explore the town, or just hang around the common room of the hostel where we were staying.
One night, there were a couple of musicians there, and one of the Irish techs went back to his room and got his guitar to join them. They all played for a while, and then the other musicians left, but he continued playing his guitar, and the rest of us were all sitting around listening to him.
At one point, he started up a melody that was very familiar to me.
"Romeo & Juliet," I said.
He nodded. "Do you know it?"
I indicated that I did.
"Sing it then," he suggested with a grin, as he continued to play.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am terribly self-conscious. Not shy exactly, but definitely lacking in confidence, and singing out loud to a group of people simply isn't the sort of thing I'm likely to ever do. It's something I might fantasize about in the back of mind, but only if I could do it as someone else.
Several of the others tried to encourage me. Unfortunately, this just made me that much more nervous and self-conscious.
I do love music though and I did know this song, and in spite of everything, I could feel it almost bubbling up inside me, looking for a way out.
Before I even quite realised it was happening, I started singing...
cScott