REGRET

We were sitting in a little coffee shop this weekend. An impromptu date squeezed between errands and kid drop-offs, when I found myself telling my husband about a regret I’ve carried for years.

I’ve started voice lessons again because I signed up to audition for a musical, and honestly, I’ve been nervous. That led me to tell him the whole story: how my first voice lessons at 14 set me on a path where I never quite found my own voice, and how different things might have been if I’d known how to ask for what I needed back then.

My mother put me in voice lessons when I was 14.  While both my mom and dad appreciate and love music, neither of them ever studied music in any way.  So, my mom didn’t know what to look for, and since this was before Google Business and local Facebook groups, my mom had to ask around.  A friend of hers from church who was a pianist recommended someone, and that’s who my mom scheduled me with.  

… Here’s what my mom didn’t realize: my teacher was teaching me to sing only in head voice, and with a straight tone.  And, if those words mean nothing to you, here’s the long and short of it:  I didn’t sound like a Broadway singer.  Or a Disney princess. My teacher also chose my material for me, which meant we worked on some Broadway songs, but also lots of arias.

My voice teacher was a really kind and lovely person, but I didn’t like my lessons because we weren’t working on material I enjoyed, and I didn’t like the way I sounded.   In the school musicals, I was relegated to the chorus, not to leading roles.  But I was an incredibly shy and timid kid, and I generally trusted the decisions of the adults around me.  I didn’t have the tools to communicate what was wrong, so I did what most kids do in this scenario: I didn’t practice. My senior year, I finally sang my own way for an audition and got a small part in the spring musical.

I worked with the same teacher for four years.  Then, I went off to college, where I majored in Theatre + Drama.  And I learned: I really did not sound like everyone else when I sang.  I didn’t know how to use my chest voice, and I couldn’t belt.  And here, something else came into play.  I didn’t know how to audition for musicals.  I didn’t know how to communicate with the accompanist, I didn’t know I needed to write my vocal range on my resume, I didn’t know I needed to pick a song in the same style as the show, and I just fell apart when I auditioned.

I worked with a couple voice teachers during college, who helped me find my chest voice, my mix and my belt.  I didn’t ask for help with auditions- I was so deeply embarrassed and thought I would figure it out on my own.  I never did, and never got over the audition nerves.  After a few really embarrassing auditions, I decided I was a straight theatre actor, not a singer.  I stopped voice lessons after the first semester of my junior year.

I moved to New York in 2012 to pursue my acting career, and while there, I was cast in a few small projects.  I didn’t audition for singing roles.  However, I was cast in one small little show that had some choral singing, and the director tracked me down as I was leaving rehearsal one day and said, “Mary, I didn’t know you could sing!  Why on earth didn’t you audition for a singing role?”   And then he asked me to play Janet in his upcoming production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Just- gave me the role!  And I had to turn it down, because the performances were during the week of my wedding.

I did start voice lessons again, and started auditioning for musicals here and there.  But then, I got pregnant, and after Sawyer was born, I didn’t have the time or finances to continue voice lessons. 

“I just wish,” I told my husband, “that I had had the courage to speak up when I was fourteen.  That I could have told my mom I wasn’t learning to sing in the style that I wanted.  That I had asked my voice teachers and friends in college to help me navigate the auditions. That I hadn’t been so embarrassed.  I really regret that.”  

He looked me in the eyes and said, “Mary, I don’t want you to think like that.  That isn’t helpful or healthy,”

“The best you can do is get the help you need now, which you are.  You are testing out different voice teachers to find the right one for you.  You’re asking for help with auditions.  The best you can do is to use your experience to support our boys.  You did not have the tools back then that you do now, but you can give our children those tools.”

I sat there for a while after he said that, sipping my coffee and letting it sink in.

It made me think about the yogic concept of samskaras- old mental patterns we carry around, often without realizing it.

For me, one of those patterns is the story that I “should have been braver.”  If I had been braver, maybe I wouldn’t have missed my chance.

But yoga reminds me: this inhale, this exhale.  I can’t lengthen the inhale from two minutes ago, but I can lengthen this inhale.   I can’t rewrite the past, only notice when I’m still living there.  And when I notice, I can come back to the present.  This inhale, this exhale.  Gently creating a new world and new patterns, one breath at a time.

xo,

Mary