As I crawl out of bed at four in the morning for my five a.m. shift, I can’t help but feel a weight in my heart. I’ve known what I wanted to be for a long time, but I’ve never had the courage to pursue it. I didn’t dream about managing people at a clothing store when I was little, but without paying attention, I slipped into the service industry. How did I get here?

It isn’t backbreaking work, and thankfully it’s a job that doesn’t come home with me when I finish my shift, but stocking the shelves, handling the customers, they’re creatively unfulfilling tasks. My mind wanders as my body goes through the motions. Have I applied for a job today, or written my weekly blog post? Sometimes phrases or ideas come to mind that I try to jot down between serving guests. It’s so hard to find places where I can show my creativity so I try to pursue them in my free time, but sometimes it feels like I’m spinning my wheels in the sand. The only difference between a personal project and a creative job is commercial success, right? Maybe that or pay. In either case, it doesn’t feel like I’m making progress turning one into the other.

I started this blog with the intention of having something to share with people, but it’s kind of become a form of meditation rather than something I feel comfortable linking people to. Contrary to my intention, I’ve never been confident about putting myself out there or sharing my personal thoughts, especially on the Internet. I don’t know whether to chalk that up to stage fright or a fear of being told my opinion, or performance, is bad. I’ve had this idea for years that I would record some videos and try to grow a channel on YouTube, but shame has ever been an obstacle for me.

When I was younger, I used to tell people I wanted to be a voice actor. To me, the people who give voices to our favorite animated characters are the bridge between our world and the fantastic worlds they portray. It would be so cool, so much fun, to lend my voice to a production like that, or even a local commercial. I practiced singing in school to build my voice in a way that supported that dream, and followed the industry to try and learn the entryways… but I never found them. As YouTuber culture took off, I started to get the feeling that when I talked about my passion for voice acting, it sounded to others like I was looking for a job where I didn’t have to work. My parents chuckled at the idea of being a person who “does voices” for a living, and when I’ve brought it up in professional contexts, my peers laughed at me and discouraged me from trying. That shame has made me so afraid to post anything online. Even posting something like a video online feels like it’s making a statement: “hey, look at me!” But that isn’t it… that’s not why I want to perform. I want to be the bridge, the part of the fantasy that can exist in our world through performance.

The irony is that the reason I was interested in voice acting in the first place is because I’m terribly shy. I never liked my body as a young man. I felt stiff and awkward, but I had fun trying to imitate different people, or make my voice sound like someone else’s. When I realized that I’m transgender, I started taking steps to bend my body into a shape that felt more like me, more like the person I knew I wanted to be. But as my body became something I was more comfortable with, I became more preoccupied with my voice and how it would be perceived. Many of the speech techniques I learned for fun helped me sound more feminine but… the idea of singing in front of people, or performing in a traditional way, became so much more frightening.

Voice actors don’t have to show their faces. If I was off-screen, I can make my voice bellow like a dragon, or warble like an old woman. When I’m alone in the car I sing, sometimes in character voices, for no one but myself. It makes me happy, it’s something I’m really enthusiastic about… as long as no one can connect my voice to my face. I don’t know why I’m afraid to let people know I want this, I just know that I am. I guess because people say “it’s cringe,” or easy to make fun of, or presume you’re a clout chaser of some kind. But I do think I could be good at it, I’ve just never been great at advocating for myself…. But if I could act in voice roles, even if only as a part-time thing, it would make me so happy. At least if I try, I’ll have an answer, right?

One morning this week I bemoaned these feelings to a friend of mine, and in response he said something that really stuck with me: “It’s easy to convince ourselves not to do something.” I wonder how much of this internal shame I carry came from my surroundings, and how much of it comes from me. I’m really not sure, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. Like my dream of being female, I know what matters is that it won’t happen unless I steer my life towards it. Maybe I’ll feel an even hotter shame when I get rejected, or if someone hears me performing and makes fun of me… but I’ll never know unless I put myself out there. I just wish “out there” wasn’t so paralyzingly frightening.