Day 280 or What I Threw Away

When I started this blog some time ago, I promised to be honest. Honest with you and honest with myself. So I have a confession to make.

Once upon a time, I had a gift. A gift that came easily. A gift I did not respect.

Once upon a time, I could sing. Really sing. I say that with no ego. I am simply acknowledging now what I didn't then. But I threw it away.

Not like Whitney Houston. I didn't poison my body until the greatest voice of a generation was left to a gravely mess. No. First, I obviously did not have a voice of a generation. But I had a voice. My voice. And I neglected and disrespected it until it was no longer what it should be or what I now wish it to be.

Now. I miss that voice. I watch Glee and sometimes I start to cry. I see these beautiful young people who sing with such ease. Like I did. And like I can no longer.

I still have a voice. But not that voice. Not that range. Not that easy. Because at a young age, I gave up on myself and on my voice. I simply stopped trying. Stopped practicing. And voices need care. They need attention. And mine was denied that attention.

Now twenty years later, I want what I had and I have to accept that it's gone. I can get some of it back with a lot of work but my stratospheric soprano is forever gone. My easy belt is gone. It's like Joni Mitchell said, "You don't know what you've got, till it's gone".

But somewhere inside of me, there is a voice telling me that I need to sing. So I am committing to starting where I am and respecting what is still here. I can't undo two decades. I can't rewind the tape, I can't push the restart button. But I can choose to be where I am and work as hard as I can from this point.

So that's my confession. My life's shortcomings are not simply a refection of a bad deal in the career card game. I like to think that. It's almost comforting. But if I am going to being fully honest and authentic, if I am going to look back at this year and feel that I lived up to the title of 38 and Growing, I have to acknowledge that I was not always a true participant in my career. In my life. I embraced an image of myself that celebrated my insecurity and rejected my strengths. Why I did that requires more hours on a therapist's couch and more blog entries than we have time for here. Let's just accept the fact that I took a really wrong turn at one point.

So now as I close in on the big 39, I am trying a course correction. So I don't look back at the next twenty years with regret. So I can say that I saw my gifts and I did not throw them away.
That I did not pave over paradise.

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away the D.D.T. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Late last night
I heard my screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

I said don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot