Sing Out Loud

I love to sing.

Love it. LOVE. Not just humming along to the radio, but full-throat, breathing all the way down to the diaphragm, put-your-heart-into-it singing.

I took Chorus as my elective all the way through middle school and high school, and I tried out every year for the audition-only Girls' Chorus. When I was in the seventh grade, I had a one-line solo in a play I was in with my gifted-and-talented group, and it was like a little slice of heaven. For weeks of rehearsals, I lived for those few seconds.

I belonged to the youth choir at my church. I went through baptism and confirmation almost entirely because that's what my friends in choir were doing. It was the most religious time of my life, to be honest. It didn't matter what the words were: Hallelujah chorus or sexy top-40 power ballad, God was in the music, and singing was not just an act of worship, but a moment of connection.

I'm not sure when, exactly, I realized that I'm really bad at it. I didn't have a single big moment of epiphany. No one took me aside and explained that enthusiasm and heart are no substitute for notes that miss the mark. But by the time I was in college, I had finally figured it out.

And I was, above all else, utterly humiliated.

Years -- years -- I had poured my heart and soul into my performances, and never realized I was being hidden amongst those with more talent. I'd begged for solos, rejoiced in each (church choir is nothing if not inclusive), and never noticed the audience wincing. How many people had I sung for, over the years, who smiled politely and wondered to themselves how I could not know that I sounded like a duck trying to mate with a frog.

How embarrassing.

Worse: I still love to sing. I've got whole playlists in iTunes devoted to songs that make me want to stand up and raise my voice, songs that never fail to improve my mood when I sing them, songs that let me vent when I'm feeling down.

But I hardly ever use them, because I can't sing in front of people anymore, so all my singing is pretty much confined to when I'm driving somewhere, alone.

Yeah, I know people who don't care how they sound. And I know most people don't even care that much how I sound (certain musically-gifted family members aside). Don't worry if you're not good enough / for anyone else to hear / Just sing... I wish I could not care, but I do. I used up all my store of not-caring, I guess, back when I thought I was actually good. Letting someone hear me sing is like letting them see me naked. Or worse, even, since at least there's a few things I don't hate about my body, and there's pretty much nothing to love in my voice.

So I think I can count on one hand the number of people that I trust enough to sing for. And even those people (except for Penny and Alex, who don't know any better) are likely to hear my pre-emptive apology about how tone deaf I am. Which is a lie; I can tell the difference between notes perfectly well. I just can't hear the difference between my voice and the note I'm trying to sing. But I have to say something, because the alternative is that they might tease me about it. Or lie about it. Or just smile politely and wonder if I'm aware that I sound like a duck trying to mate with a frog.