I Know I'm Good, but...

I know I can do this.

I’ve stood on stages. I’ve auditioned. I’ve been trained. I’ve heard the applause. I’ve had people tell me I’m amazing, wonderful, talented. Not once in my adult life has anyone said otherwise.

That’s not the issue.

The issue is the voice in my head screaming: You’re not good enough. You're not pretty enough. You’ll never be enough.

That moment turns from panic to dread before I even hit “post.”

I’ve been training for this since third grade, pretty much. I mean, sure- I started singing before I could even read-but I’ve been in church choirs, in school choirs, musicals, and I’ve auditioned and been accepted into show choir. The fifth-grade assembly where they made me stand under the fluorescent lights and sing for the community - that moment rewired me. I’ve been chasing and running from it ever since.

Yesterday, I shared three videos. I even made a few more. I hated all of them. I hated the way my face never looked at the camera because I was paying too much attention to the words. I hated that I don’t know how to do my hair, so it just kind of sits there. I hated that I didn’t have the energy or the desire to do my makeup, and right now I’m hormonally broken out a little bit. I hated the way the camera itself looked- flat, unflattering, like it was allergic to me. I picked a purple sweater because it was comfortable, but even that didn’t look right.

And yet, my voice was good. My voice is good. That’s not ego, it’s fact. I’ve worked for this. I’ve studied. I’ve broken myself open for this craft- and I’ve trained myself to sing almost any genre there is.

I can believe in me all day long. I can go from singing Jefferson Airplane to Queen to Adele to Radiohead all in one swoop, and I don’t even care. I can belt with the best of them. I have voice control my middle-school choir director would be proud of- no, my high-school choir director, because he used to yell at me for smoking. And I still showed up and made sure that my diaphragmatic control was on point every time. Asthma or no.

I’ve spent months singing daily for the kids on the school bus- I’m basically a human radio, and people have no problem using me as such. It’s never been unusual for people to call out requests when I show up for karaoke night. The first karaoke contest I ever entered, I tied for first place. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I’ve done karaoke on stage at the Cat’s Meow and had people holding up cell phones and lighters like it was a concert. The last time I auditioned for America’s Got Talent, I won a front-of-the-line pass from a local radio station just by throwing up a random video of me singing a few lines.

And I'm beyond simple karaoke- I spend most of my workday driving down the road with the radio up, singing every single song that comes on. For hours. Even customers have stopped me just to say they enjoy my traveling show these days. I like to sing things that I feel- and I feel everything really big. I don’t sing to show off my voice. I sing because it’s the only way to let the emotion move through me without breaking me open completely.

And not just the people who have told me I’m talented, amazing, wonderful. I dare anyone to find a single time they’ve seen me sing and I didn’t sound at least halfway decent- even drunk off my ass and slurring half the words. I am pitch-perfect, baby. Ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine percent of the time. Which is good because I never could be disciplined enough to read sheet music well.

I’ve got a two-and-a-half-octave range, for God’s sake. I am not an amateur.

I am a performer in a body that’s not sure it can hold her.

Still, I sat there scrolling through my own work like a stranger, thinking, God, I hate my... everything.

People talk about the joy of creating, but they never talk about the comedown- the quiet panic that settles in after the doing, the shaking aftermath of exposure, the way your brain fills with static and starts screaming, everybody hates you.

And now, this third time I’m auditioning for America’s Got Talent, I am thinner, smaller. I can fit the appropriate-sized clothing. I finally look the way I’m “supposed” to look when I walk onto a stage. So it feels like it should be my turn.

But what if it’s not?

What if there is no “turn?”

What if every time I auditioned, every time I won, every time someone cried and hugged me and thanked me for singing at a funeral- it was just a beautiful lie?

That’s the part that wrecks me. I can believe in my talent all day long. What’s harder is believing that talent is enough.

Still, I’ll keep doing it. I’ll keep posting, keep singing, keep throwing my heart at the wall and calling it art. Because if I wait until I feel good enough, I’ll die waiting.

Maybe that’s the secret nobody tells you: artists don’t create because they feel worthy. We create because something in us refuses to stay quiet, even when it hurts to be heard.