The Long Undefined Middle

“What’s the point in doing this?”

The voice rings out in the car on the drive from Dallas to Lubbock. My Raleigh show is in 4 days and I’m standing in a dust storm agitated over bones in the salmon and preservatives in the food my mom’s husband bought to feed my kids.  

My dad comes in. He’s got an amp and a mic stand from Jake’s Backroom, one of the several music venues he’s opened in Lubbock over the years. 

He asks me questions about my stage set up and my tech rider and I get an odd sense that, despite him owning several music venues, he may not be aware of how stage set ups are typically managed? Does he not use a production company? Or, he does but doesn’t get into the details? Of course not. He’s not a musician. 

I wring my hands and schedule out the next few days in my mind wondering when I’ll truly get in a practice. 

Later that night the voice rings out again as I lay awake in my trailer. “Who do you think you are trying to do this? What’s the point?” 

I’ve got 3 days left and I’ve been planning for months. Did I do enough? Will I be embodied enough? What have I left out of the plan? The details? My heart is beginning to race. I know that I can do my songs but there’s more to it than that. There’s so much I want to be in that hour. So much I want to live up to. 

I’ve got to get my head in the game now. I can’t be getting distracted by chicken bones and protein sensitivities. The twins are two and a half. Their dad will be with them! My mind reels with topics and concerns unrelated to my show. 

“You’ll never make it all the way. So why even try?”

It’s the voice that rings out when I’m dressed nicer than everyone else. It’s the voice that rings out when I play a new song for a seasoned guitarist. 

It’s the voice that squeezes my heart when I hear a beautiful song on the radio or see the glorious stage designs and costumes of successful artists. It’s the same voice layered into all 9 of my Instagram posts so far. 

I get annoyed. How can it be that the same voice that beats me down also propels me forward? It follows me no matter what decision I make. It’s always asking these pointless inane questions. Like, “Who do you think you are” is such a stupid nebulous and vague question. Yet it squeezes me into submission and brings me to my knees. 

Why? Why you? How?

The voice asks with sarcasm. 

I whisper back, Umm?

I inwardly start to question my decisions, my past, my identity, my childhood, our future. I’m searching for a thread, eager to make some absolute answer fit. 

And when I relent and take the easy route and just stay in my lane and live a conventional life, it does the same. In the middle of the night it starts asking me when I’m going to live my real life, when I’m going to go for my calling. Or, it asks with a sneer, if I’m going to live a safe, quiet, unremarkable existence in a bland house on a bland street.

Tears brim from somewhere primordial. I’ll never be able to answer all the contradictory questions and impossible accusations of my inner critic. Shame flares up. Something inside of me squeals out in pain. It feels like I’m asking for air. Spikes prick across my chest and in my spine. 

There’s something terrible inside those questions. 

I compulsively reach for a distraction, I gossip to myself about how so and so thought I sounded good and tiptoe around the shame. I’m looking away from what I’m actually supposed to be doing. Anything but this. Don’t make me look at this. Don’t make me see whatever tender truth is inside these questions. 

The day of my departure I awakened to snuggling babies and a bright clear sun. It shines through the curtains of the Airstream. I can feel the cool breeze through the window. It gets cold in Lubbock on spring nights. 

My body is like a brick. I slept great. I don’t want to move. “Why am I doing this? Why am I going there?” The voice whispers and turns a knot in my stomach.

Barefooted, my babies and I tiptoe through the wet grass to my mother’s house for coffee and breakfast. “You’re gonna miss them.” The voice whispers again and tears line my bottom eyelashes, “what if something bad happens?”. 

I recount all the ways this will be good for us.  

I pack my bags and prepare to leave them. Their little faces and squishy bodies climb all over me and spill my coffee before I get in my brother’s beaten up work truck and head to the airport. 

In Raleigh now. The night of the show I look into the mirror. My brown eyes narrow in on themselves. The cognitive dissonance between having arrived but not fully is weighing in my mind. There are so many mental variables that can't be rushed. An infinity of topics that I want to explore. 

But the voice presents again and something shifts. I endure the pain a moment longer. 

Who do I think I am? 

I’m now holding the question in front of my eyes. It was so nebulous, so undefined, but now I can turn it over in my hand. There are many obvious holes I never thought to see, even ones that are easy to fill. I realize this stupid question is almost a mirage. It has little substance.

Who are you? 

Someone inside is looking at me as if we both know. And yet, I don't. 

I’ve been dodging it here and there in ways that are so satisfying. It shows up in my procrastination. In my excuses. It’s there in my incomplete plan. In my shame and ruminations. I’ve been hiding from a ghost, barricading myself in gossip. I see myself avoiding. Avoiding, for what?

The terror loosens its grip. My heart beats a bit slower. 

The picture is still only partly uncovered but I’ve come this far. The show must go on.