The other day someone whose opinion I value asked me why I often seemed to rely on other people’s words to say things rather than my own, and it made me think. I suppose lyrics are/were so important to me as I felt unable to use my own voice. Certain songs, poems etc hit a resonance with me, the writers being able to put into words how I had felt but had not been able to articulate. And so I then thought and looked around for an answer to that one.
My past - it's taken time to trust my own voice as being as good as other people's as I was told for so much of my childhood and young adulthood how stupid I was. I was also in a job and a former marriage that reinforced that feeling, and so it's only in the last few years, as I've started to recover from those past influences, that I've felt able to speak, as I had been told that I had nothing to say, nothing that anyone else would value or find remotely interesting – my ex-husband did a prize-demolition on my self-confidence which lived on even longer than our marriage did. (As I said before, luckily I have a nice hubby now and my past has began to haunt me less.) In my childhood, music also let me escape into my own little world, sitting upstairs in my room, listening to my singles and albums, as much or as little as I wanted – my own area of control, my sanctuary, in a world otherwise beyond my control. I used to write poems, journals etc as I grew through early adulthood but it was very infrequently and something I never shared - it's probably why I can't find my book of poems that I wrote at that time, because I didn't value my own words.
I still query whether to share some things as it's like giving little parts of me away. But I'm starting to realise that in giving you can get so much back. Music is still a big part of my life, with certain singers or writers hitting those chords in my heart, but I’ll keep risking it with my own words, although it may be others who have started the thought xx
My past - it's taken time to trust my own voice as being as good as other people's as I was told for so much of my childhood and young adulthood how stupid I was. I was also in a job and a former marriage that reinforced that feeling, and so it's only in the last few years, as I've started to recover from those past influences, that I've felt able to speak, as I had been told that I had nothing to say, nothing that anyone else would value or find remotely interesting – my ex-husband did a prize-demolition on my self-confidence which lived on even longer than our marriage did. (As I said before, luckily I have a nice hubby now and my past has began to haunt me less.) In my childhood, music also let me escape into my own little world, sitting upstairs in my room, listening to my singles and albums, as much or as little as I wanted – my own area of control, my sanctuary, in a world otherwise beyond my control. I used to write poems, journals etc as I grew through early adulthood but it was very infrequently and something I never shared - it's probably why I can't find my book of poems that I wrote at that time, because I didn't value my own words.
I still query whether to share some things as it's like giving little parts of me away. But I'm starting to realise that in giving you can get so much back. Music is still a big part of my life, with certain singers or writers hitting those chords in my heart, but I’ll keep risking it with my own words, although it may be others who have started the thought xx
1 comment:
["...to trust my own voice as being as good as other people's..."]
For me Jewel it was simply writing what I could no longer keep inside. I applaud your efforts; compare yourself to no one.
Peace and love, dcrelief
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