"Stay You." (Part 2 of 2)

And so began the years-long journey of self-acceptance. Soon after, I had the opportunity to confront my sexuality. Predictably catastrophic: I ended a relationship and alienated my family, all for the experience of sitting across the table from a sympathetic pair of eyes that now responded, 

“Oh man, I’m sorry, I was just joking.” 

“No yeah that’s fine,” I responded too quickly, because I knew the answer. I knew my dive was a belly-flop into the lukewarm September pool water of rejection–but as the force of the impact radiated throughout my body, I recognized something familiar, but long dormant. 

I was feeling. 

“If you take a child who’s great at math,” my therapist began, “and put him in a room with a stranger who tells him he can’t, you will watch that child close up and lose access to his talent.”

“But if that same child is simply allowed to be, you will watch him flourish.” 

Of course. My consciousness freed from the voice of the commentator, I could now apply it simply to executing whatever task was at hand. Performing was no longer applied to my identity. I did not need to “do” in order to “be,” but in simply “being,” I was finally able to “do.” 

It manifested first in a half-conscious state; at 2:00 AM I reached for my phone and opened voice recorder to whisper the seed of what would become my first composed song. I did not think.

Before long, the same freedom began to find itself in my voice; released from the expectation of displaying some ideal, my instrument was finally allowed to speak from a place of authentic impulse. Finally, I knew what that felt like.

I think we look outside ourselves too often. 

We are given a set of demands and expected to perform. We judge ourselves when we fail–to meet the mark, to behave according to the unspoken, to be impressive, important, inspired. We move with a mindset of brokenness that tells us that we may one day become worthy–provided we fix ourselves. We thrash, cursing our own incompetence, wishing we could change; all the while, the untapped well of our greatness was never something removed from us, on the other side of some overvalued validation from “someone who isn’t you.” 

All the while, all any of us had to do was be.

My therapist signed off every email with a reminder: “Be you. Be great.” I carry this message with me into my art, into my teaching, into my writing, and into my interactions with everyone I meet. It’s a thing I have to commit to, to insist upon when I’m challenged, to remind myself of when faced with a problem I can’t yet solve. I insist upon authenticity in the face of repeated and resounding imperatives to be less. Some days it’s hard, but every day it’s worth it to stay me. 

I’m here to invite you to do the same.

Stay Honest. Stay You.

–Lucas