When I was in college I had a fascination with frat boys.  They were the antithesis of what I grew up with in a house with 4 strong females and an overwhelmed male.  These guys lived in the moment, were free to express themselves in all ways and loved to have fun.  The free beer didn’t hurt either. I just loved hanging out with them and I am sure I wished that it would never end.

Be careful what you wish for….

Two years ago when I met my fiancé I was ecstatic to learn that he had been in my “favorite” fraternity!  I was thrilled when he invited me to the Homecoming tailgate party with “the brothers”.  When we got there, as expected, there were all the cute boys laughing, having fun and living life to the extremes.  Of course they were surrounded by the equally gorgeous sorority girls, which caused a reaction that made me realize I may have some unresolved feelings in that area…  And then there were these old guys, standing around and pretending they were part of “the brothers”.  I was disgusted until it hit me that I was with that crowd, not the young one where my mind thought I should be.  I wasn’t disgusted, I was distraught.

Fast forward to the present day:  I have resolved my inconsistency of mind and body and am comfortable in my own skin.  I have a son who is now home from college for a couple of weeks, fresh from his first semester living in a frat house.  He has not quite assimilated back into a family environment as of yet and I am getting way too much of a peak into what it is like to be a 19 year old living without rules and too much testosterone.  What was fun and exciting about frat boys when I was 19 is just plain gross now.  What WAS I thinking???

Time to pull out my old mantra from when I had little children:  “This too shall pass”.

I hope.

I did my part to spread some Christmas cheer yesterday:  I sang loud for all to hear.  And I watched the movie “Elf” (for the 4th time) with my daughter.  (For those not familiar with the movie, it’s cute and my first line is a quote from it….)

But getting back to my singing….I did it!  I followed through with my commitment to sing a cantata with my church choir (see my blog in which it was questionable: http://www.thepwcinc.com/blog/archives/mercy-quitting ).  It was truly a humbling experience for me.  I had always thought I had a decent voice, although not consistent.  Being surrounded by experienced singers, even some professional ones, REALLY highlighted just how inconsistent I am!  If I hit one note in 3 measures, it was a good session!  And let’s not even go there with the words.  These were all in Latin, something I managed to never study.  The director kept scolding us for using dipthongs.  I didn’t even know what that meant…

Saturday we had a dress rehearsal with the orchestra – a lovely 7 piece string group.  I knew I was really in trouble when I realized due to my height that I would have to stand in the first row.  I had thought maybe I could hide behind the real singers and get away with it.  Now not only would everyone see me but the director REALLY could give me the evil eye.  I felt I was trying every ounce of his patience and good Christian values.  I was trying not to take it personally when he announced he was quitting after only being there 4 months.  Seriously.

The other thing besides my singing ability I was worried about was my facial expressions.  I realized that all during rehearsal I had been rolling my eyes or grimacing every time I did something wrong.  In other words, frequently.  Probably not a good thing for someone in the front row of the choir to be doing.   I was glad we had a dress rehearsal so that I could practice being facially neutral as well.  It wasn’t easy…

Sunday came and I was a bit nervous.  It did help that the minister told me I looked good in my robe.  Well, the purple stoll did work well with my hair color.  I could only hope others would focus on that rather than actually look at my face.  I wore my new contacts to look especially stunning – and then realized that I had not brought my reading glasses and could not actually see the words of the song.  Great.  And to make matters worse, it was a packed house.  Who knew that many people would come to church?  What happened to the days of empty pews?  Didn’t these people have more important things to do like, sleeping or shopping or getting ready to watch a football game?

What helped me in the end was realizing this really was NOT about me.  It was a gorgeous church, beautifully decorated for Christmas, and lovely music was to be performed by an amateur choir accompanied by professional musicians.  I decided this would be as close to Broadway as I was going to get so why not make the best of it and “fake it till you make it”.  I decided to pretend I was as good a singer as the woman soloing next to me and if nothing else, I looked good in the robe!

So even though I could not see the words, nor pronounce them correctly, or even hit every note, I sang my heart out.  Only once did I jump back into my head and start to panic, but was able to quickly let it go.  The words of a very sweet choir member kept ringing in my head “its not about the individual voice, but how you can blend with the others to make it bigger and better”.  I think I could do that.  And the result was that the blending of the voices was beautiful and uplifting and I didn’t grimmace once, at least not that I know of.

They asked me to sing on Christmas Eve as well.  Well, hey, you never know…