Something else--I've been told through the years that my singing voice isn't that great. The girls I shared a suite with in the college dorm hated my singing. My DH doesn't particularly care for it either, but he doesn't like singing in general. I know that I've got a whispy, asthmatic sound to my voice that makes me unfit for solo performances. So I've been told one way or another for years that my voice isn't very good.

I know my voice is noting very special. I listen to the vocalists I admire and I'm awed by their talent. I don't have a true talent for singing, not really. I can mostly hold a tune, but I do go sharp or flat often enough to keep me from feeling confident.

And it's always hurt that no one (except DD and my mom) liked my voice. I adore singing. It brings me joy.

So, lately, I've been getting compliments on my voice and I seriously don't know what to do with it. A couple of ladies at knitting circle have commented on it when I spontaneously sing a few verses of something when the spirit moves me, which is fairly often, and it's hard to accept the compliment, because it's the opposite of what I've been told for the first two decades of my life!

And at church, for over a year a couple of people in the choir who've overheard me singing in the pews have been after me to join the choir.

Just this past sunday the new pastor heard me singing (I was in the front pew) and then that evening he heard me again at the special evening service (I was four pews back, my voice carries, I've got some serious volume). Afterwards during the social hour he and the people who'd been sitting around me all started in about how lovely my voice is and how I should be in the choir.

I came home and when I told DH about it, I started to cry.

It's hard for me to open myself up to the possibility that my singing voice isn't as awful as I think it is. I've been so hurt by the rejection in my twenties—really really hurt, folks--that I'm fairly unwilling to open up and accept the complements in my 30s.

I can’t help thinking there’s some kind of universal plot here to heal my heart around the issue of my singing voice.

I’m more than happy to do some duets, trios, quartets, whatever, some special music at church. I’m not willing to commit to joining the choir because I don’t need another project that will take me away from home in the evenings (for practice) right now. I’m saying “no” for my own personal sanity. But I’d enjoy doing some special music now and then. I’ve always loved singing in groups, the energy that comes from people blending voices with one another to create music is very cool.

I'm kinda mad right now, not so much at the people who've put me down, but at myself for listening to them.

I think I'm coming to accept a more realistic assesment of my singing. I'm no Bette Midler, my voice is fairly simple, don't have vibrato, and when I'm relaxed and happy, it sounds sweet. It's nothing worth cutting a record for (though I did once, another story) but it's perfectly adequate for singing lullabies and kids' songs for DD and for a special event at church. I think I'm sinking into a middle ground--my voice isn't the kind that I'd always wanted to have, a natural talent, but it's not as bad as I've been told it was in the past, however.

When I protested last Sunday when the people around me were commenting on how good my singing was one of the ladies quoted her grandmother who used to say, "If three people say you're sick, go lay down!"

I'm not as mad about this now that I've worked through it a bit here. I think writing it out has helped some.

It's nice to have a safe place to vent.

Anhata
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