Does Anxiety Expand To Fill The Space Allotted?

     Tonight is my piano students' spring recital.
     I've been having student recitals for going on two decades and I swear I've never been as nervous as I am about tonight, even though tonight's should be for me hundreds of percents easier than any recital I've ever had.

I should be sliding over this one like Tara Lipinski on ice,

...not like  like Charlie Chaplin sliding on a banana peel.

     The reason tonight should be easier is that I've changed both my recital venue and  modus operandi.  
     For years our piano recitals, held three times a year, have taken place in a large church auditorium,

...and were followed afterwards by either a sub sandwich/pot luck reception in winter, a pizza/pot-luck reception in spring,

...or a cook-out/pot-luck pool party  in the summer.

      Subsequently my students, rather than dreading their piano recitals as  frightening ordeals, have always looked forward to these social evenings, wanting to talk as the recital approached about the food,  asking me whether an up-coming recital was the pizza or sub recital, wanting to know what sides and  desserts there'd be, telling me about what yummy dish they were planning on bringing.  Once a young student asked me about the theme of an approaching recital.  Impressed by his intellectual precosity, I explained to him that what he 'e be playing was called classical music, and that the other pieces would be a mix of classical and modern music, with the younger students playing folk songs and beginner songs. Turned out he just wanted to know  what we'd be eating afterwards. 
      The food was a good thing.  It took the kids minds off their performance nerves.
     But of course, the recitals, fun as they always were, were also a ton of work.  There were chairs to be set up and taken down afterwards, the piano, too  had to be moved before and after,

...tables had to be set up then taken down,

...there were pizzas and subs to be ordered and followed up on, food to be bought, prepared and set up, all the necessities to be hauled to and fro,

      Was there ever a  another piano teacher in history who threw such lavish, affairs as moi? 
     Eh, maybe.  But I didn't know any.  And though, I truth, I threw these labor intensive shindigs because, well, I liked to, I often wondered why other teachers I knew always got so stressed-out over their student recitals  when all they had to worry about was their students' performances.           Though I hardly knew from experience, I was convinced that putting together a student recital that didn't involve simultaneously putting together a gargantuan spread afterwards had to be a worry-free breeze, or at least it would be for me.
     Or so I thought.
    Last year it came to pass that I knew the time had come to seek out another location for our recitals, so I turned to the venue most used by Columbus piano teachers for students' performances, the recital hall at the Graves Piano and Organ store,

...an elegant theater where  students  have the opportunity to play on a 9-foot Steinway concert grand piano,

...but which offers no space for any kind of reception afterwards.
    However to my pleasant surprise my students' initial disappointment over the demise of their post-recital parties turned to excitement when they arrived for their dress rehearsal, took in the beautiful surroundings and tried out the Steinway, a touch-friendly instrument which they all loved playing,

...even in their muddy-day-on-the-school-playground  clothes.

      So the rehearsal went well, my students seem to be looking forward to performing in their new place and have been  practicing in preparation,

  ...and  my  cat seemed to enjoy listening to Tommy and one of my students rehearse their duet, which I considered a good omen.

      Everyone seems ready and everything seems in place.
      I have nothing to do between now and tonight.
      And I'm a bundle of fluttery nerves.  Maybe two or three bundles, even.
      But why? 
     In fact, it's not even as if I've never before had students perform at Graves.
     Back in 1999 I had a student recital there, except that it wasn't really my show.

     As I only had five students at the time,

...I was actually just crashing a colleague's recital, so he was in charge of the outcome.  And the stress.

   This time, however, I'm in charge, which somehow makes it feel all different. 
   But I think I figured it out when it hit me that there is now a big empty space in my brain that used to be filled to capacity on recital day  with thoughts about tables, chairs, lighting, pizzas, soda, cup cakes, veggies and dip, cups, plates, eating utensils, serving utensils, and  other logistical details too numerous to mention. I think that, nature abhorring a vacuum,  a passel of stress and free-floating anxiety has moved into my brain to fill up the space that used to be filled with a big to-do list.  I was too busy to worry much.
     Now I've got all day.