My whole life pretty much has been devoted to music. Apparently, I showed signs of some form of musical talent at a young age, and was put into a choir. There I remained for about 7 or 8 years. Towards the end of that phase of my life, my choir conductor decided I should learn piano with him, and took me on as his student. 5 years and 3 exams later, he got married, and stopped teaching, leaving me without someone to teach me that I felt comfortable taking lessons from.
In grade 11, I started taking voice lessons, since it was the general consensus that I should go into music for post secondary. Nearing the end of my second year, my voice teacher had a baby, and stopped teaching.
Enter 1st year university. I was taking choir and voice lessons, along with a full course load, which included an impossible language, which I took mainly because my mother told me I shouldn't. My choir conductor was amazing, and my voice teacher frustrated me. Being the stubborn person I am, I toughed it out there a year, before deciding shortly before my finals that there was no way in hell that I was ever going back. Not exactly pleasing for my parents to hear. Even less pleasing were my final marks from my school year. The next day, my mother told my father, who was in Africa at the time, of my failures, thus ruining his trip, or so he said. My mother told me I had no drive to do anything in life, and that I wasn't going to make it at all. I tried to find something else to do, but she shot it down. Only after she read up on it was it deemed 'acceptable' by her, something all to common that occurred throughout my childhood. That day in May was the last time I sang.
I have always enjoyed singing. It's something I find myself fairly good at and work hard at when I need to. I believe God has blessed me with a gift for singing, and I try to use it in thanks to him. It was not uncommon for me to burst into song randomly in school or at a grocery store or on the bus or while walking somewhere. I was well known for it among my friends, and the random people that saw me often. After hearing that I had no drive for music, I lost my passion for singing.
Fast forward to July of this year. A very bad virus was going around my work, and I happened to catch a slightly milder form of it, but painful and annoying nonetheless. I called my mother, asking for her to pick me up some medicine. She started making wonderful comments, about how I never helped her, so why should she do me a favor? My favorite was when she said I never helped her train our dog Monty. She refuses to be his owner, preferring to let the dogs walk all over her, which is the main reason they never listen to her. But no, I have no clue what I'm talking about, I'm just her daughter who has worked at a pet store for 2 years and helps people with this kind of thing on a daily basis.
So, as she's telling me all of this, I get really angry. Here I am, at work for another 5 hours, with a very painful sinus cold and headache, and all she can do is berate me for telling her that she needs to learn how to take care of her animals better. So I hang up on her.
She calls my cell, none too pleased, obviously. Against my better judgement, I call her back. She proceeds to tell me that I am a lot of trouble for my horrendous actions, and to go ahead, call her bluff and move out, but I won't make it because I only work in retail, and I have no sense of commitment or drive to do anything in life.
That day, I start making plans to move out. I talk to a friend, who lives with his uncle and says that there is a room there that I can live in for about $400 a month. All utilities included, I just have to buy my own food. I am hoping to avoid telling my parents this, but that night they corner me and I am forced to tell them what I was hoping I could avoid doing until I had actually moved out. Nevertheless, I agree to buy the car off of them, and listen to them tell me that I won't be able to survive living on my own, with guesses of how long I'll last.
At the end of August, I moved out. I packed up all of my stuff. I got my friends to help me move across town. I am completely away from my family, except when I must make appearances and visit my aunt, uncle, and grandparents. I have my own place, my own car, a wonderful job lined up for next week that's really close to my new place, so I won't even be on the same side of town as my parents anymore.
So, why am I still not singing?
My guess is that I'm not totally out of their sphere of influence yet. They still call me often. My mother tried to tell me that I stole from her, and wouldn't apologize when I proved to her (quite nicely) that she was mistaken. My dad calls to tell me that he misses me. My mother has never said anything on the matter, and honestly I don't care.
People told me that my life would get better once I moved out. It has, but not to the degree that I was hoping or led to believe. I still have to beckon to their will, it seems. I am not truly free. I don't know when I will be. But when I am, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be singing loud and clear once I am.
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