Find It In Your Heart To Sing

Who Are You, Really?

Sometimes, I don’t know who the fuck I am.

That’s normal, right? We all have those moments, when somebody asks you to tell them about yourself and you just…go blank. Partly because it’s strange to be put on the spot like that, and partly because nobody is actually anything, and deep down, we all know it.

There are other moments - solitary slices of time - in which we consider the question ourselves: “Who am I?” Those can be the scariest bloody times.

Thankfully, despite moving to a new area recently, I haven’t really met anybody. So nobody has asked me what I “do” for a living or hurled unintentional skullduggery my way. The people I encounter are just nice. So, it’s up to me to wonder exactly who I am and what exactly it is that I do with my life.

Those aren’t the healthiest questions to turn over in my mind for too long; it can get dicey. Having faith in my lack of knowing sometimes offers comfort. But generally, it’s best to avoid questioning my existence altogether and just live it instead.

Eventually, though, the question becomes inevitable. And it insists on being answered.

This morning, I had fifteen to twenty minutes to occupy while I ate breakfast. What I should have done was sit quietly and eat food and drink my homemade mocha (even though silence lends itself to questioning ones own identity, nourishing oneself in peace is undeniably ideal). What I did instead was follow my compulsion/instinct to turn on Youtube and watch the music video for my current best-loved song, by one of my favourite living songwriters.

It’s a lovely, darkly spontaneous-sounding piece that I’ve listened to dozens of times, and the visuals are a pleasant gothic match for it. I hadn’t fully seen the video (1.5 million views) until this morning and I was happy to ingest it along with my pancakes. When I reached the end, I noticed that the last shot in the video is exactly the same as the last shot in a video (275 views) I edited for myself back in 2020.

This sent me down a familiar rabbit hole, deciphering my own past through the audio-visual traces and markings I have left behind. I let auto-play do its thing and watched half a dozen or so of my own music videos and realized, once again, that I am just as impressed with myself as I am with my heroes.

I have become my own idol.

Truthfully, I’m really proud of all the hard work and literal sweat and tears I’ve poured into making art (with my true love, Ryan) for a few hundred people to witness, or not. And occasionally, I need that jolt of recognition that I’m not just some lady who cooks and cleans out cat litter boxes. I’m not just a mom who’s obsessed with her wonderful kid. I’m that person. I’m a musician, a music producer, video editor. A writer. An artist. That’s not boasting, I tell myself; it just is.

I don’t experience imposter syndrome anymore, though it played an enormous part in my earliest days of writing and performing poetry and music. Back in elementary and high school, I wrote poems and played guitar and sang, but I wouldn’t join my friends onstage when they invited me to because I wasn’t a “real artist” in my own mind. I never possessed that fabled certainty that some performers have that they're going to be Somebody. I suppose that mindset is a logical fit for those who end up having followers in the millions, but never for me. In my early 20’s I was mortified to jump onstage with my friends and sing with their bands even when they invited me up there.

Nowadays, I can wail on drums or a guitar or sing in front of whoever, whenever without question. I just don't, because I'm too busy writing books and doing laundry and entertaining a child. And out of all those confident people I knew growing up? I’m one of the only ones who still writes and makes music and shares it all publicly. It all reads like a bit of fiction full of twists - this being just the first of many.

It wouldn’t be healthy if I revisited my own art every time I felt a little bit out of sorts. Nah. That might permanently fuck me up. But once every year or so, to dive into my own creations - my songs, notebooks, videos, photos, essays, weird stuff I’ve made that lies around my house? Highly recommended spiritual therapy. Let’s call it minimalist narcissism. No! Narcissistic minimalism. That’s probably already a thing, but for a second, I’ll just pretend it’s another one of my self-defining creations.

When you feel like bolstering yourself by diving in and admiring something you did in the past, or when you feel like comparing yourself to one of your icons for just one silly second when nobody is looking? I say, do it. Head on in there. And don’t ask yourself who you are on the way back out.

You’re nothing. We’re all just dust.

But at the same time, you’re everything you’ve ever done, or will do, and so much more.