Remember - you have no chance of winning...
"Remember," said Mark's text, "you have no chance of winning!"
I was touched by Mark's thoughfulness just as Maggie and I were heading off to this year’s Dumfries and Galloway Life Awards, in which I was a finalist for the Visual Artist/Maker category.
This all makes much more sense if you know about my experience last time I was in this position, 4 years ago, which Mark and I had been reminiscing about a couple of days previously.
See - The Jekyll & Hyde transformation of being an award finalist
I didn’t want to go through that mental assault course again.
I’ve been to the D&G Life Awards several times, usually as a guest for someone else, and it's fun evening out.
I tend to know at least half a dozen or more of the people who are up for the awards in different categories, and this year I noticed, with a certain amount of smug pride, 4 of them had photos I'd taken, being displayed in the programme and projected onto the screen when their category was announced.
Trevor Leat, who was the actual winner in our category, I’ve known for many years, so I was genuinely delighted he was the one collecting the award.
But as I’d feared, just like last time, from about half an hour or so before, my mind began turning to thoughts of being up on stage, shaking hands with the sponser and being photographed holding my rightful award.
I could feel my enjoyment of the evening getting hijacked by that part of my brain which as a 4 year old child wouldn’t let anyone else play with his toys.
As the winner of the category was announced in the one prior to ours, I turned to Maggie and said, "Remind me…"
She looked me in the eye, held my gaze, and then with all the love and support of a woman who has been my soulmate for nearly 31 years could muster, said,
"Kim - you have no chance of winning!"
And finally, I was able to relax.
This year the awards were live streamed onto YouTube, so if you'd like to see the point where I had no chance of winning then here's a link to that part in the video (4 hours and 5 minutes in):
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