Living as loudly as I can

Even though I try to avoid making resolutions, I have spent these last few days reflecting on what I hope to accomplish this year.

I always say that my goal is to be better than I was the year before.

Since I count last year as one of trying to survive, I wanted to really reflect on the areas I needed to experience some growth in this year.

There’s been a lot of things I have wanted to do but I haven’t -- truly out of nothing more than Imposter Syndrome and pure old fear.

It can be scary to put yourself out there and try something, only to fail.

I have never had that ‘thick skin’ that I have heard lauded by writers, nor do I have the confidence to do a lot of the creative projects I’d like to try.

It’s not for a lack of ideas; I have several notebooks full of ideas and projects I’d like to pursue.

I put them all off, saying I’m not quite ready or don’t have enough time.

Instead, chasing perfection has caused me to not do a whole heck of a lot of what I’d planned on doing my whole life. A lot of things I’d probably enjoy, too.

“You ain’t getting any younger,” Granny would tell me when she was here and I’d give an excuse as to why I wasn’t pursuing something.

True, I am getting older and with each year that passes comes another round of excuses.

Granny never let excuses of any kind stop her from doing anything.

More importantly, she never let what anyone thought stop her either.

Granny, bless her heart, could not carry a tune in a bucket.

Her voice was always a tad bit off key, off kilter, and off pitch.

That did not discourage her in any way, shape, or form either.

She would sing just as loudly as she could, all the way to the rafters of the church, her voice cutting above all the harmony as it was the one that stood out like a tinny dissent.

I’m pretty sure there were a couple of times the preacher’s dog howled along with her.

She did not notice when people sometimes physically jumped as she aimed for those high notes, or when people scooted down a bit on the pew to give themselves some distance. Even the few that dared to glare at her couldn’t dampen her zeal.

Granny did not care. Not one iota.

She stood there, nearly six feet tall in her heels, head back, hymnal in hand, and bellowed out those notes as loud as she could.

My grandfather never sang in church -- not once did I hear him open his mouth and a tune come out, only to discover he had a rich baritone to rival Sinatra’s when he finally did sing after he had Alzheimer’s. Instead, he stood there silently beside his bride, letting her sing loud enough for both of them.

They were a perfect match that way; Pop couldn’t hear in one ear --hopefully the one closest to Granny -- and Granny couldn’t sing.

I asked Pop about this once, Granny’s singing that is, and why he thought she sang even though she was evidently tuneless.

“She loves it,” he answered quietly. “It makes her happy and gives her joy. Who am I to stop her from doing something that makes her so happy?”

“It’s causing the rest of us a lot of pain though,” I said.

“Don’t you say a word to her, Lil’Un,” he cautioned. “It’s something she really likes to do. Everyone needs to do something that makes them happy in this lifetime.”

I thought she had her sewing and bossing us around to make her happy, but evidently I was wrong.

“Why do you like singing so much?” I asked her on the way home one Sunday after a particularly raucous singing. The worship had included “Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fly Away” -- two of her favorites -- and she had just about worn herself out with her performance.

“We're supposed to make a joyful noise,” she answered.

Well, she had the noise part down. Not so sure about that joy.

She sang in the car on the way to work. She sang while she cleaned the house, in between declaring we were a bunch of messy heathens that would die of filth if it weren’t for her.

It didn’t matter to Granny that she didn’t sing well. She didn’t aspire to be a great singer -- if you asked her what she dreamed of being when she was a little girl, she would tell you she wanted to be a nurse. So singing was not something that was top of her life goals.

But Granny enjoyed it.

She loved to sing, she loved music, she loved to get caught up in the melody of it all.

She loved the way she felt when she sang.

She didn’t have any training in it. Nor did she want to even sing in the choir.

She just simply loved to sing.

We don’t have to be experts at something to do it.

Loving something doesn’t mean we have to be proficient at it either.

But that’s the thing that holds a lot of us, especially me, back.

I think I have to know everything about something before I can even attempt to do it.

There’s some things we can do, just because they truly make us happy.

Let’s do more of that this year.