Being braver

When I was younger, I started to sing.  I was a painfully shy child, and fought against that every day, but somehow when I got up onstage it didn't seem to matter.  This was a godsend, seeing as I probably wouldn't have made it through Englesby Junior High School otherwise. 

I sang all the time.  I sang at nursing homes and dinner theatres, I sang on the local telethon.  I sang in community theatre and even nerded it up show choir, where I was forced to sing wearing...spandex. 

I sang because I couldn't not sing.  It was almost compulsive.  I would stand in my parents kitchen, all alone except for Trustie, our Golden Retriever, and sing until I was hoarse.  I sang with complete abandon, at the top of my lungs, and didn't give a damn who heard me.  In college that started to change, but I'd come home on weekends and sing every song I heard my classmates sing that week, until there was literally nothing left to sing.  Trustie would howl along when I'd hit a note above high C.  I never thought I'd be able to stop singing. 

But then one day that's exactly what I did.  I don't even sing in the shower anymore.  In my defense, I've been living in apartment buildings for the past decade and you can hear a pin drop through those walls.  But why do I even care?  Does the maniacal violinist from downstairs care that I happen to think he's just horrible?  It doesn't stop him from terrorizing us all with his bow.

If I were to be honest, the last time I sang in public was at an audition for Temps, the Musical! which definitely went awry.  I'd come straight from work and hadn't warmed up, and the accompanist kept screwing up the tempo and it became an all around nightmare on Elm Street (parts 1, 2, and 3...)  There were people I knew from the Conservatory standing outside in the hallway, and when I exited that room I felt...dejected.  I don't like to think of it, really, for fear my inner child may try to off herself.

I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a certain amount of guilt involved in giving up on a dream.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally wake up in the middle of the night feeling an odd sort of panic.  It's a biological clock of a different sort, but it's just as irksome.  Even more twisted is that I continue to define myself by something I haven't even done in years.  Why was I so much braver back then?  What changed?  And why can't I let it go, if I'm not willing to go out and actually do it?  In the sage words of my mother, should I not just shit or get off the pot?

That crappy audition was probably three years ago and was also the last time I sang alone in public.  Oh, I went on a few non-singing auditions after that, but after a while I even stopped going to those.  But when Hubby's sweet cousin Elizabeth asked if I would sing at her wedding this weekend, because she thinks I have a "beautiful voice," how could I say no? 

Hubby told me I could say no.  "It's okay," he assured me, probably more for his own sanity than mine.  (Somehow he sensed, after knowing me all these years, that this might be a source of self imposed stress, to put it mildly.)  But I thought back to this Spring, when my grandmother was sick, and the times when Elizabeth's mother would come and visit her. 

This was something I should probably do.

Which is why tomorrow, I'm getting back up on the horse.  It helps that my husband is a musician and was able to lower the song a minor third.  Even so, I really hope I don't make an asshole out of myself.  God wouldn't let that happen to me, would he?  In His own house, even?  Pray for me, Dear Reader!  I think I'm going to need it.  xoxo

Comments

[Amy]

Nicely done! You're going to sound beautiful, just sing out Louise!

[the odd broad]

Thanks Wink. I hope so! Right now I'm not so sure... xoxo

[Jen]

You always had an angelic voice Sarah, even my parents remember that from back in the telethon days! I'm sure that a little rush to dust off and you'll be spectacular. Good luck!

[the odd broad]

Thanks Jen! xoxo