When I was ten, I waited for my parents and sister to leave the house so I could sing out loud.

One summer afternoon, with school out and the house finally empty, I sat in the middle of the living room on a scrunchy carpet. I placed the cassette player on the floor, turned an old, irrelevant tape over and over until I found the right side, and carefully pressed record.

I remember the joy of it. Singing, knowing that when I was done, I would hear my voice played back to me. What a miracle of technology, sitting right there in our living room.

I pressed stop, then rewind, guessing how long it would take. I must have known back then, even if my memory refuses to keep such irrelevant details now. Then I pressed play.

That was probably the first time I ever heard my own voice from the outside. And I remember the thought, clear as day:

Hey! That doesn’t sound half bad…

I kept singing after that. Alone, for the most part. Unknowingly training my voice. I put on “talent shows” with friends, joined school choirs, kept going until I was eighteen.

I sang alone on a stage for the first time when I was nineteen. It was a karaoke bar called Mojo. I was belting out an overly ambitious version of Black Velvet by Alannah Myles while people cheered and danced.

Was it good? I have no idea. The video recording from that evening doesn’t help my case.

By the time I got on stage, mostly on a dare, I was a few drinks in. But I remember how it felt. The anxiety. The cracks in my voice. The notes that missed their mark. None of it mattered.

For the length of that song, the stage was mine.
And nobody could take it away from me.

Where did that get me?

Nowhere, really. I’m not a professional singer. I’m a professional shower performer, part of a very exclusive group of karaoke people, and I jam with friends whenever I can.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that the first person who ever believed in my voice was me.

This was never a story about becoming anything. It is simply about showing up, again and again, and listening closely.

The rest starts here.