Yesterday, I sang happy birthday to a friend in a video message despite thinking I have a terrible voice.
“I’ll sing the low version,” I announced before plucking up my courage, taking a deep breath, and attempting the first note. My low voice is the one I use when I’m messing around with my family, pretending to be a bass like my husband and not a soprano like my daughter, Imogen. We all giggle when I reach into my boots for the bottom notes.
This morning, my birthday-girl friend, who teaches singing, emailed me to say that my voice is perfectly fine. She was impressed by how I played around with my voice, singing an octave lower than normal. That requires skill. My friend wanted to know who told me I have no singing skills.
It was a music teacher in high school who crushed any singing ambitions I may have had. After deciding my voice was disrupting the chorus, she said I could only be part of the school’s production of Pirates of Penzance if I mimed the words. I could move my lips, but I wasn’t allowed to make a sound.
So I’ve been doing that ever since. I’ve been too afraid to open my mouth wide and let any notes out. Unless, of course, I’m messing around at home with my family.
Also, at school, someone told me I looked ordinary, meaning ugly. I wasn’t one of the beautiful, cool kids.
Other people’s words can hurt, can’t they? They can affect how we see ourselves, crushing our confidence and preventing us from doing the things we might enjoy.
When my first child was rejected from a choir at a young age, I believed what we were told: my daughter had no singing ability. Sadly, she’d inherited my non-singing genes. But then we met a musician who saw things as they really were, and with her encouragement, my daughter went on to achieve great musical things.
Words matter, don’t they? They can encourage or flatten us completely.
My friend’s email words dance through my mind. A smile lights up my face. I say to my family again and again, “Did I tell you what J said? She thinks I can sing!”
A few encouraging words and a whole world opens up before me. A delicious feeling of confidence and joy passes through me. Is this what happens each time we encourage our kids?
Images
I look nothing like this gorgeous AI-generated red-haired woman. I’m just pretending to be one of the cool kid mothers (who might be able to sing)!
A Big Thank You
A big thank you to my Buy Me a Coffee supporters. A coffee always helps!
