Losing It

I nearly lost it this weekend.  Not “it” like my sanity. More like “it” like my grasp of joy. My faith in myself. My belief that everything that has led to this moment has been worth it.  It happens sometimes to the best of us, and I am far from the best.

Jeff and I had just put “Feral as Folk” on spotify as we drove down to Yelm for an impromptu visit with my bestie.  I had previously felt really proud of the accomplishment of releasing Feral as Folk. It had taken over a year to put together, and had involved the donation of a lot of time on the part of some really wonderful people. I had even waited to get a mastered version before releasing it, putting us months behind schedule. All of that, however, seemed worth it because I felt so proud of what we had created together.  This time, however, all I could hear were mistakes.

How could I have not caught them in pre-release!  How could I have possibly thought this was good enough to compare in the big time! How could I have thought that *I* was good enough to be noticeable among all of the perfectly financed flawlessly produced music out there.  I felt myself sliding into old, familiar thought patterns.

“I’ll never make it as a musician, it’s just too competitive and I don’t have the money. Who do I think I am, believing that what I have made has any worth? But if I don’t make music, I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know who I am if I am not letting these songs pour through me.”

So I’m sitting here writing this email as a follow up, to ask you if you are enjoying Feral as Folk so far…and I’m feeling vulnerable as f*ck. 

Not because I don’t think that it’s a great album. I still believe that all the hard work and intention that we poured into it made something beautiful and absolutely worth your time.

But because in a very real way I NEED your approval. I need you to buy albums so that I can pay my bills and grow. I need you to follow us on Spotify so that we can claim our artist account. I need you to believe in me so the next time those voices start ripping me down I have more evidence to prove them wrong.  I need you, because we all need each other as much as we try to pretend we don’t.

So thank you for sticking with me this far.

And I do hope that you are genuinely and truly enjoying Feral as Folk so far.

And I hope that you will continue to enjoy the places that I take myself and the band in this coming year.

XOXO

-Allie LaRoe