I'll Choose My Own Key To Sing In, Thank You

I am well aware of my limitations, each week I test them. I found that singing, though I do it often, is not really my forte. I can sing a baby to sleep and entertain myself but I am no performer. If in the future I get hired to sing, let me assure you that it will be for comedic reasons. Dance is more my thing, I do it often, and everywhere.

The problem with me is that no matter what I do it seems like someone out there is trying to out do me, or they can do it too. Perhaps its the fact that I'm the youngest in my family, or the fact that for the first 12 years of my life I couldn't read or write. I was that annoying kid in your class that read like the most painfully long versions of words like “the” and “celebrate” often mispronouncing them as I attempted to decode what my peers had easily mastered years ago. I have always felt less than, inferior.

Anything I could do they could do better. Here's my deep dark secret, I don't like to fail, or look stupid, again, its a my history thing. When I do sing, its usually to myself or around people who don't care if I go a little off key. I sing for my own pleasure not for the pleasure of others. This got me to thinking about all the things we hide from the world. Why is it that if we don't sing like a megastar that we don't sing at all?

Singing is all about joy, its about expressing what's in your heart, so why are we so afraid to do it? Why do I become ashamed of the fact that I am no Beyonce? Why are we so afraid to fail? I have spent most of my life being criticized in one way or another (Remember baby of the family and dyslexic) so you would think that I would be used to it by now.

With all the experiences that I have had in my life you would think that I would know better than to listen to the criticism, but I am only human. There is always a little voice in my head that says, shut up, don't sing, don't dance, and for cripes sake stop grinning like a fool. That voice is the voice of a thousand nay sayers, we all have a voice like that some louder than others. I am grateful for one thing, no matter what that voice says, there's an even louder voice that says, you can do it.

Nothing shuts up a little voice like singing, dancing and grinning like a fool. Tunes on, check, hips swaying look out world I'm about to rock!