Unheard
Last night I made my husband watch singing shows with me. America’s Got Talent, The Voice, one compilation after another. He tolerates it. I sob through it.
My heart gets sucked all the way up to my eyeballs. My family can confirm. They laugh at me in that endeared "oh, Mom" way, and I keep watching anyway, because I’m addicted to the moment. A face walks on stage and you have no idea what's about to happen. Thirteen-year-old Malakai, a London schoolboy, opens his mouth and out comes opera. Angelina, also thirteen when she first auditioned in the U.S., barefoot, singing Bohemian Rhapsody with a soul well beyond her years (she's one of my very favorites). Someone who's hit some rough patches and wasn't sure if what they had was worth hearing. They open their mouth and the whole audience changes.
How was that voice sitting inside that person, unheard, when it was so clearly meant to be out?
I'd love to be one of them. How cool would it be to slay a karaoke night and surprise my co-workers with a voice made to tour. A singing voice was definitely not bestowed upon me.
But it’s not just the singing that makes it hard for me to stop watching. It’s how someone can overcome the fear, with trembly hands, and make a decision to open their mouth anyway. And then, within seconds, there's a connection that didn't exist before. Just by letting the outside see what was sitting inside.
I think about what's sitting inside all of us that we haven't let out yet. Not a singing voice necessarily. Mine isn't. But there are things I carry and sometimes shield.
Watching those singers leaves me wanting to stop shielding mine.