Sing a Song - A, 2-part, Memories Post

When we pause to look back over our lives, I think all of us have certain memories that send pangs to our heart. Decisions we could have made differently:

●If I'd done this sooner, that car accident wouldn't have happened.
●I should have broke up with him sooner.
●If I'd have said this, maybe that person would have stayed in my life.

I mean, let's face it we have all made mistakes that hurt to remember, or at some point we've wished we didn't make.

I'm no different. My list of personal mistakes could take years for you to read. For the most part, however, I've learned to over come those mistakes. Like most people I've had days of playing the "shoulda, coulda, woulda's" , but in the end I realize that I'm better off with that life lesson under my belt and that it probably helped to prevent a bigger mistake later.
My failures and bad choices have shaped the person I am as much as my successes have, and based on how life has turned out so far, I think I'm doing okay.

There is one choice, though, that still nags at me to this day. One little sentence that lead to one choice that affected my whole life.

You see, when I was 13, I tried out for the school choir. Music has always been a part of my life. I've danced since I was 7. There was always music playing in my home. I longed to play the piano and finally got to start taking lessons when I was 12. And my father has a beautiful bass voice. I thought that I must have inherited some of that talent, and just maybe I could grow up and be in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir someday.
All my friends sang too. We were so excited to enter the world of performing at concerts, and choral competitions. We all knew it would be the time of our lives.

Then it happened.... The list of students who had made the choir came out and my name wasn't on it.

I was crushed. But, probably for the first time in my life, I had the guts to ask why?
Mr. M, the choir director, told me that I could carry a tune, but I wasn't "choir material". To my self-conscious, never before rejected, 13 year old mind, that meant, "You stink!" and I believed him.

One sentence said, one action taken.

So what did I do with this new piece of information?... Did I try to learn more about music? Take voice lessons? Decide I'd prove him wrong?.... Nope. I quit singing.
After all, he'd been a choir teacher for 20 years, his choirs had gotten the highest score possible at the last 5 years competitions, he even starred in the local community theatre musicals, he must know what he was talking about.

So I gave up the dream. I tried to take faith in the fact that I could dance and dedicated my life to that. But the truth was, it shook my confidence big time.

I supported my friends (almost all of them had made the choir.) I was the loudest cheering audience member at every concert. And I had good friends who supported me too. They tried to tell me I could still sing with them in other venues. Tried to tell me Mr. M had made a mistake, but I "knew" they were just saying it to make me feel better.

When High School came along those friends begged me to sign up for Sophomore Girls Choir. I refused. "I can't sing," I told them, "I'm going to take dance instead." (I did love my dance class by the way.)
They would ask me to sing with them in church etc. I would only join in if there were more than three people in the group and I could just blend into the back ground.
The next year came and we had the same conversation.
"Please take choir!"
"I can't, I'm taking dance."

By the time our Jr. Year was about to end, only my two closest friends ever heard me sing and that was just when we were goofing around, and most of my friends had given up trying to get me to sing elsewhere.
As a last ditch effort they begged me to try out for the school musical that would happen our Senior year and I finally caved.
I could dance, one part of the audition down, I'd taken theatre, next part of the audition possible, and if I chose a song that was right in the best range of my voice maybe I'd get lucky and get a small part. I mean, even the Sound of Music has parts that don't sing, right?

So we all tried out together.


To be continued.......