this is my thoughts to myself about my voice, carry on.
I have always had a difficult relationship with performing. I love it, I have been good at it, as a dancer and a musician both. It was wallowed up by martial arts and school and work all my life, so singing to me has always been more about self-soothing and escapism than anything. It's the talent I am proudest of, and I spend at least an hour every day singing or doing vocal exercises. Even simple ones, even half-hearted while i do something else. I don't know who I am without my singing voice.
I've got family who busted my violin, and bartered it away. Tried to sell my guitar from under me, wrecked the piano at my mother's place. My stepfather forbid me from playing music or speaking above a whisper while he has in the house for years. I used the hours i had away from the house to practice and sing. I landed scholarships through public speaking. Even when my voice makes me dysphoric as all hell, it's the voice that got me my job, it's the voice I teach in, it's the voice i sing in. And god damn I am proud of my singing voice and aye, I think it's about coping for me. I coped singing, and the idea that going on t, which has been something i have been fighting tooth and nail for for years, could make me struggle to recover my voice terrifies me. It terrifies me. I've been having stress dreams about it, I burst into tears thinking about it, and nothing comforts me for more than a couple of hours.
I'm aware that a lot of the despair and anxiety are rooted in the uncertainty of what comes after t, after having waited so long for it. It's the kind of anxiety you feel when you miss a step going up or down the stairs. The closest sensation i can draw on is that split second before I used to let go of the trapeze; breathless terror, despite the full awareness that there was a net below and the knowledge that i was confident enough to catch the bar. Only instead of a split second of terror it has been months of building up to this moment, with the knowledge that it will still be another year at least before my voice starts to settle. Motherfucker it's torture.
I am also painfully aware that it's the only positive reinforcement i have been able to internalise, because I get to see it in people's eyes on the very rare occasions I've been blessed with it. 'Your voice means something to me', 'the emotion in your voice', 'you make me feel like crying', 'do it again', 'sing this for me', write me another poem, sing me another song. People were kinder to me, when i started singing. I noticed immediately that people valued me more, could look over whatever they couldn't before.
I barely sleep, let alone write for pleasure these days. I get sadder and sadder, and I feel difficult and bad and lonely and short on patience, and the only thing I do every day when I wash my dishes instead of crying is sing, sing, sing.
how else can I comfort myself, if I have never been able to do it any other way.
