FINDING YOUR VOICE

     I think it is good to find your voice and I have yet to find mine.  So I joined a choir that required no auditions.  Could this be what I needed to express myself a little?   It takes courage for me to really say what I want or to feel a feeling.  I have been afraid of my feelings ever since I can remember.   I have a limited vocal range and since I haven’t sung in years, would they be ok with that mature crack when I hit a high note?     I sat next to Patty last time who helped me read music again.  I couldn’t say thank you when she said that I have a nice voice… instead I said a joke or something.  When I got home from our first rehearsal, I felt a little more alive.  When I walked out of that first concert I felt good that I was a part of something important.  I felt excited that I stood tall singing the song, “I Ain’t Afraid”.  I still messed up the words a bit but the importance of it was not lost on me.  Music makes us feel things we might have missed in our day to day routine.  Maybe that’s why everyone is watching the TV show Glee.  Or why American Idol is so popular.  We feel something when we hear a great singer and a great song.  Music makes me happy and finding my voice makes me happier.  People are funny…We act as though we are fine when we are not.  When I sing, I can feel any emotion I want and I know it’s okay.  So I went to our first rehearsal and we sang “For Good”, from the musical, Wicked.  I had to keep it together because the tears were coming.  My ex came to mind because we had just broken up the week before I started rehearsals, and then I thought of my mother.  But how many people touched my life in 53 years and I was changed “for good”?  Too numerous to mention.  And when we did our first concert, even though we didn’t sing that song, I thought that my mother would have been proud that I was back up there singing.  Not in the musicals she saw me do in high school or college where I was the star or something like that…but in a choir with women working hard to be an ensemble and supporting one another.  “I know you like to do comedy Chrissy, but just sing."