Last night I did something I haven’t done in almost a decade.  I sang, solo, in public.  I don’t know if I did well or really terrible.  I don’t exactly trust the opinions of drunk people.  I should mention that I wasn’t drunk.  All I drank last night was a soda, no alcohol in it.

And I just realized how off track I’m getting.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I was finding myself singing pretty much all the time.  I also mentioned that it had been a long time since that had happened.  Last night, I went to karaoke, and finally got my gumption up to go pick a song and put myself in the queue.  I picked Skyfall, because it’s one of my very favorite songs, and I decided that if I was going to fail, I was going to do it on a pretty epic scale.

When my turn came, I got the microphone, and as the first line passed my lips, something incredible happened.  The fear, the lack of confidence, the overwhelming insecurity that has hounded and haunted me for the last ten years vanished.  My voice was there, and it was strong (like I said, don’t know if it was good or not, but there was definitely some power there).  For the first time, in a really long time, I suddenly didn’t care what anyone thought of me.

Something inside me has started to break free, and it’s pretty fantastic.  I’m starting to unlock parts of me that I’ve kept locked up for years because of fear and hurt and fear of being hurt.  I struggle with the idea of being vulnerable, but I think it’s time I am.