To Speak

I fear my voice.

I am afraid of hearing myself speak to you with your eyes watching me along with a dozen other pairs.

My heart pounds, trying to break out of my chest to escape the suffocating fear of giving you something to judge and reject.

My vision blurs, trying to cloud out the sight of you all watching me struggle to produce a complete sentence.

My ears ring, trying to drown out the voices in my head telling me you will dismiss me the moment my words come out.

My hands shake, trying to rid themselves of the need to be held in this moment.

And my voice, when I finally use it, breaks apart, escaping in pieces of thoughts broken on their journey from my mind to my lips. My words fight their way out, trying to maintain a fraction of the integrity of my fully formed thoughts. My mind sighs, embarrassed by my voice as it poorly represents this decently intelligent brain. My memory hides away; it does not want to record this moment.

My fear tightens my throat, strangling my voice as it tries to reach you. For that, please excuse my squeaky voice. And don't mind my grand hand gestures; I am trying to distract you from my trembling mouth and reddening face. And I am sorry for the awkward pauses, my shaking hands make it hard to find my place on the page. I typed this out for you, but I accidentally left out the best parts once I began this monologue. I am desperate to meet the standards I told myself you set for me, but the bar was too high and I sense you all have discovered by now that I, despite my sincerest efforts, have failed to hide my debilitating insecurities.

As I rush through this pathetic speech, I finally make eye contact with you. How terrifying.

And I can't read your expression because all of my brain power is being used trying to sound competent and gesture appropriately and smile and hide my shaky hands and slow down and speed up and project and look up and somehow pretend I am not as nervous as my body betrays me to be.

But when I do see your eyes, I know I am still afraid. Yet it's okay now.

I am here before you with words to share.

I hope my shaky voice reminds you I am a human being who can be nervous and afraid, like you. I hope my shivering hands show you I have weaknesses. I hope my stuttering reveals the value I put in these words, that they have such importance as to make me concerned about their power. I hope my blushing cheeks give me away as someone afraid to be in the spotlight, but who will honor it anyway. I hope you can find comfort knowing that I, standing behind this podium, need comfort, too, as your fellow human being.

Let my voice pave a path through this silence so that you can see a way. Let me take the first step in this journey of sharing my heart, and you can pick up the pieces that fall behind me, littering the ground with fragments of ideas to inspire more of yours. Let my example encourage you that scared people still have words worth sharing.

So though I am afraid to speak, I speak to you anyway. Though I am weak, these legs keep me standing before you now. Though my head spins, I find you in the crowd to honor your presence in my audience.

Though it shakes, I use my voice. For you.