THERE IT IS

Michael asked me yet again, probably for the fifth time, what I needed for summer camp. I answered him with the same answer I gave the four times before: a shug of the shoulder and a questionable ‘nothing’. I mean, I’m teaching a class on using the camera on your phone. I have a giant tablet I’m writing some notes on and a stack of lens cleaning cloths. I bought an HDMI cable so I could hook my laptop up to a projector for a slide show presentation at the end of camp. I have a tent, a sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, and an ice chest. I am debating about taking our camp box of cookware. There will be a few meals not provided at camp and while there will be grills and firepits, there will not be cookware. To take cookware or not to take cookware is the thing I am contemplating the most right now.

Except, I have had enough people ask me if I have everything I need enough times that I am starting to doubt that I have everything I need. Then, just a few days ago, Kelly re-posted a picture I had taken onto the camp’s facebook page as advertisement of my class and what’s being offered at camp and I heard it. I heard the voice. It started out by just whispering in my ear, but quickly escalated to straight up yelling in my face. Yeah, you guessed it. It was the Voice of Doubt. There it was, telling me that I am a total fraud and an imposter. The truly amazing thing is that I have been able to fool people into even thinking I had some sort of talents. In fact, The Voice of Doubt applauded me on my acting skills. At first, I almost didn’t recognize the Voice of Doubt because it’s been awhile since I’ve heard it, but it has also been awhile since I’ve done anything that puts me in a vulnerable spot.

Do you know what the Voice of Doubt makes me do (besides obviously see myself as a failure)? It makes me procrastinate. This is such a flip from earlier days when the Voice of Doubt would have me in a frenzy of over preparedness. I have a mystic voodoo theory about how the Voice of Doubt affects me now versus how it affected me then and it basically comes down it’s all Chris’s fault. Gah! I used to get so frustrated by Chris’s procrastination particularly because I was the opposite of a procrastinator. Now, because of my mystic voodoo theory that is too crazy for me to tell you about, I get it. I understand that all of that procrastination was because of the Voice of Doubt. Instead of doing anything, I am sitting here thinking about making a list. But only thinking about it. You see, I can’t even get it together enough right now to make a damn list. This infuriates me and I want to scream back at the Voice of Doubt, but I never scream back.

I’ve never been good at putting up much of a fight.

I have two choices right now. I can walk into this whole thing half prepared or I can snap out of it and get myself together. I know what I am doing. I have some really good bullet points of information I plan on sharing. I do not need much of anything to share these bullet points. I don’t need to be THE authority of digital photography. I just need to share the things I know. I have got this.

So fuck off, Voice of Doubt.