A friend of mine randomly told me she had been thinking about my \u201cmusic career.\u201d Which was funny to me, because I don\u2019t really have one. But nonetheless, she told me that she had been thinking about me and my music and told me I should post more cover songs and try to collaborate with other people to try to get more of a \u201cfollowing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of this is stuff I\u2019ve always kind of known, but I just haven\u2019t done anything about it. I told Mark about our conversation and he was like \u201cErica, that\u2019s the exact same stuff I\u2019ve been telling you for years. You just need to start putting yourself out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought about it for a few minutes, then told him I felt like I wasn\u2019t ready, and that people wouldn\u2019t care. \u201cWho wants to watch a chubby twenty-something mom sing cover songs? Maybe when I lose 40 lbs or something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He then proceeded to tell me that more people could relate to me that way. That I didn\u2019t have to be this perfect version of myself to feel like I could put myself in front of an audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when it occurred to me that these voices in my head have been seriously messing me up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The past few years, I have repeatedly listened to these voices in my head telling me that no one would want to watch or listen to me because I\u2019m not some young, skinny, perfect person. That for me to be confident enough to put myself out there, I needed to whiten my teeth, get a decent hair cut, get some color on my skin, lose 40 lbs, get hernia surgery, lose the lazy eye\u2026 the list goes on. I haven\u2019t been updating my website pictures because I\u2019ve been telling myself that once I reach all those qualifications, I can get some pictures of myself taken so I can freshen up my website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have been wasting way WAY too much time worrying about what other people think of me. And worrying that people won\u2019t accept or like me as I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I\u2019m done wasting time. I don\u2019t want my daughter to feel like she can\u2019t accomplish her goals and dreams because she isn\u2019t some ideal version of perfection we assume everyone cares about. We are all beautiful, individual, unique people, and we ALL have something to offer the world. People relate with imperfection. People feel comfortable around other people who are imperfect because it gives them permission to love themselves as they are, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I\u2019m going to start trying my best to just be me, and to accept myself as I currently am. I\u2019ll always be striving for better, but it\u2019s a constant journey, and I can\u2019t just sit around letting my life and dreams go by because I haven\u2019t reached the destination yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, hi. I\u2019m Erica. I weigh more than I should, have stretch marks all over the place, an umbilical hernia that makes me look like I have a weird lump under my shirt, right on top of my pregnant-looking belly because my core muscles are shot from kids and just years of not having core strength in general. I have feet that are stupid wide, a lazy eye, a scar on my chin, and pasty skin. I have a short waist and shelf hips and overly dry hands from hand washing because I have OCD and generalized anxiety disorder. I\u2019m codependent. I\u2019m kind of weird. I\u2019m a mess in all kinds of ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I\u2019m also awesome. I\u2019m friendly, compassionate, and loving. I\u2019m a decent singer\/pianist and a pretty awesome songwriter if I do say so myself. I\u2019m a good mom, and a good wife, and a good friend. And I hope as I start this journey of self-love, that the list of things I love about myself gets much larger than the paragraph of my imperfections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I\u2019m gonna go try to sleep while I can before my monster toddler wakes up 4 times in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend of mine randomly told me she had been thinking about my \u201cmusic career.\u201d Which was funny to me, because I don\u2019t really have one. But nonetheless, she told me that she had been thinking about me and my music and told me I should post more cover songs and try to collaborate with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ericamccann.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}