pure enjoyment

Sacrament Meeting is one of my favorite hours of the entire week. I have not found one other hour of my 168 hour week which uplifts and edifies me more. One of my absolute favorite things about this hour is the chance I get while the Sacrament is being passed to reflect on my life--on the things I have improved on as well as the things I need to improve on. Yesterday, however, as I was sitting and pondering, a thought came into my mind that was most unexpected. It was that I needed to start singing again. Honestly? Out of all the other things I could be thinking about? And I thought, "I need to start singing again"??

This caught me completely by surprise. I haven't thought about singing--really singing--in...well, in months. The shocking thing about this is that for about six years of my life, singing was the main focus of it. I was completely certain that when I went to college, I was going to major in vocal performance and go on to be a singer at the Metropolitan Opera. Despite my certainty, however, as high school went on and my voice competitions became more regular, I realized that singing should NOT be the main focus of my life. There were many reasons for this, one of which was that I did not like the person I became as I exercized this particular talent in such a competitive way. So I decided to move music as one of my minors, and when I started my first semester of college, that idea became only a vague memory as I got busy and almost quit singing altogether.

This summer, I started singing again as I recovered from a very extended illness that I had. Since I had a lot of time in a day in which to do nothing, I spent many hours at the piano in my dining room playing and singing out of pure enjoyment. I finally remembered why I had started singing in the first place, and it was a great feeling. Despite my newfound excitement, as things got harder and I got busier, I stopped singing again. I realized something about myself as I was reflecting in Sacrament Meeting yesterday: I am a very tempermental musician. As long as things are going great and I am happy, I love singing. But as soon as things get a little bit hard, I immediately stop and wonder why I liked singing in the first place.

Perhaps the biggest reason I am writing all of this is that I've heard a million times that if you're actually going to accomplish something, you need to write it down. And this is something I want to accomplish. I want to get back out all my classical and Broadway music and dust it off. Because I really do love singing. It allows me to feel things that I do not ever feel otherwise--intensities of emotion that only express themselves when I sing.

So...here I go. This is something I really want, and I'm going to have to work at it. I know my voice is far from what it used to be. But it's going to be worth it. And maybe, just maybe...as I start to sing again, I'll be able to find a piece of the happiness that I lost before I decided that I didn't want to sing anymore. This is going to be so much fun.