"why are you always singing?", she said derisively
and the day my voice became quiet
"Why are you always singing?", she said derisively, with attitude and judgement. "Because that's what I do", said the small voice in my head. But I didn't say it out loud to her. She wouldn't have listened anyway.
But she crushed me that day in a way only adults can do to children.
Since I could talk, I've been singing. Music moves me in a way I can't explain, melodies worm their way into my head, verses become etched onto my skin. This is me; it's always been me, ever since I can remember. I'd be in the backseat of the car belting out Borderline by Madonna in the same breath that I could sing Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand. It's just what I did, I didn't even think about it. I opened my mouth, hit the right tune, and hit the right note.
In summer day camps as a child, I'd perform in the end-of-summer musicals and sing my little heart out. In elementary school, I'd audition for school plays and just go out there and do my thing, no hesitation. It felt right, my tiny little self being on that big giant stage.
But somewhere in that hazy blur of going from age 9 to age 10 (double digits now!), someone broke my spirit.
I was helping a friend of the family with a task and the radio was on. I no longer remember the song being played on the radio, but I remember her words. Children instinctively know when an adult doesn't really like them and sensitive girl that I was, I could feel her dislike emanating off of her like waves. She was always dismissive and spiteful towards me, but I was still being nice and helpful and assisting her with her task. The radio had been on for a while and a song came on that I liked, and so I started to sing. Not loud, but to myself, anything to make the day go by faster.
"Why are you always singing?", she said derisively with attitude and judgement.
"Because that's what I do", said the small voice in my head. But I didn't say it out loud. She wouldn't have listened anyway. Instead, I mumbled something unintelligible, and she fixed me with a hard look for a few more seconds and then went back to her task.
I stopped singing.
We are all wired differently, to be sure. My wiring has always been plugged into the "massive amounts of sensitivity" outlet. So maybe to someone else, those words would have just bounced off them and they would've just thought, she doesn't know what she's talking about and would have moved on. But dear reader, I am not wired that way.
Her words crushed me. Her posture, her attitude, her haughtiness, reverberated through me like an electrical shock. She took, in one fell swoop, my flower of song and melody; she took my fallen petals for indeed they had fallen, she took them and left me withering within my stem.
I never sang in public again.
As I got older, I'd sometimes sing with my friends. In the car driving around as teenagers do to the latest songs on the radio, we'd harmonize, and I'd adjust my tempo to theirs and we'd have fun. But I'd only really belt out, really let loose my voice, in the privacy of my own bedroom. It felt safer.
As a new mother, I'd sing to my daughter and as her beautiful eyes started to close and her dark eyelashes rested on her cheeks, I wished for all the beauty in the world and for her to sing her heart out one day, if that's what she chose. She is a teenager now, more interested in the musical leanings of Panic at the Disco, than say Mariah Carey, but that's okay. We sing along to I Write Sins Not Tragedies every time it comes on the radio station in the car, and it is the best feeling.
I've noticed something about my voice...
When I am happy, I sing. When I'm not, you won't hear a peep from me. It's like some dark twist to The Little Mermaid; I'm over here just being an Ariel wanting to be part of your world, and then my melancholy comes (depression, anxiety, sadness, or one of its other twisted sisters) and I've turned into my own personal Ursula, taking away my own voice, robbing it of its freedom. My voice box stays still, in a limbo that it did not impose. The melodies and harmonies stay silent, like someone has accidentally bumped the record player, and no one has figured out how to get it going again.
Then the day comes when I am feeling stronger, better. A random song lyric begins to play on repeat in my head. I start humming it out loud at first, then the humming gives way to the singing and then I know for sure. It's time for my proverbial Ursula to go.
I'm human and I've got my voice back. Ariel would be proud.
Why are you always singing? This time I take her words and gently answer them, lovingly to myself, for they no longer have the capacity to hurt me now. The girl within me knows why we sing. We sing because we simply can't not sing. I sing because, my God, does music do something to me. It makes me feel alive. I feel the music pulsate within me and I can't help but let it out, let my voice do its thing. I sing because this is how I was made. I write song lyrics in my head and sing them out loud. I'm never going to be strutting across a stage and that is okay. I really don't want to. Writing is my passion, but singing is part of my body in a way that is deeply imbedded into my soul. I would be lost without music; it is incorporated into who I am at my core.
"Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out" - Oscar Auliq-Ice
All this to say, don't let anyone silence your voice, friends. Whether you sing, write, draw, paint, knit, sew, photograph, etc... don't let anyone's words make you feel like you can't share your creative gifts with others.
I believe in your capacity to create magic. You should too ✨
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Oh this is sad, and relatable, the things we squash in ourselves for others. Sing, sing, sing.
I think it is lovely to hear someone singing, no matter what, where or how. Whistling, too. But I think we've lost the habit. Or it's been crushed. Keep singing, please. For yourself, your daughter me and everyone in the human race!