I Can't Sing But I Still Do Anyway

Over the weekend my husband and I went to a Lady Antebellum concert with friends.  Well, I went and while my husband was there physically, he was not really there mentally since he just came along for the ride. It wasn't really his type of music.

As the curtain opened and the three singers appeared on the stage the crowd went wild.  It made me wonder when did I realize I couldn't sing?

Growing up I never dreamed about becoming a singer.  I did dance around with a hair brush in my hand pretending to lip sync but it was just to be silly. 

There was that time in fourth grade that I joined a bunch of other girls to form our own band for the school talent show.  We started with several of us in the band but by the day of the talent show only three of us remained.  Me, Jody, and Megan wore jackets (with shoulder pads), tennis shoes, and jean skirts and danced around the stage lip syncing "Walk Like an Egyptian".  We even had painted our own handmade cardboard guitars and used our fathers' old ties to make guitar straps.  I had a feeling then that I couldn't sing.

That was confirmed in fifth grade when we all had to try out for chorus.  I didn't make it.  Out of about five rooms of students, there were enough of us musically challenged  left over to almost fill one of the classrooms.  So while the other students had chorus practice we were forced to watch "educational" movies.  I still remember one of them being about bees and pollination.  Ugh.

In high school I noticed the caterwauling er...singing coming from our pew at church.  Apparently, my singing ability is hereditary.  Alas, my husband can not sing either and refuses to do so.  This does not bode well for our daughters' singing futures.

The other day I was singing along to "Farmer in the Dell" while we were in the car and Emily cried out "please, stop singing, Mommy".  I guess she doesn't like my singing either.


Yet, I have no problem embarrassing myself  in public for family.  I sang karaoke at my sister-in-law's bachelorette party (with the rest of the partiers) and have sang many a kid song at Mommy & Me classes.

On Saturday, I sang right along with the songs. Who could hear me amidst the thousand or so other voices? And you know what?  It felt darn good.