Melted Gold – Buy it
Finish the sentence: I suck at ______. What’s the 1st thing that comes to your mind?
Do you wish you didn’t suck at that thing? Have you ever tried to not suck at it? Can you attribute your suckiness to something someone told you?
For me, the things I’m so quick to dismiss as things I can’t do are often the things I wish I could do most of all.
I suck at singing.
I was 5 years old, sitting on the toilet, swinging my legs, and singing like no one was listening.
“You’re not on Broadway, you’re in the bathroom, Becky!
To be honest, I don’t remember exactly what my mother said. All I know is that I was made painfully aware that my singing was heard and not appreciated.
Maybe it wasn’t even an attack on my voice. Maybe someone just had to use the bathroom and I was taking too long… but I thought I sucked at singing for years afterwards.
That’s why I limited my urges to those times when I knew no one could hear me, but I never stopped. I sang in the car, when I was home alone, and every once in awhile, when the music was loud enough, I’d sing among close friends.
A few years ago, I was singing in the car with my friend Dominique. She told me I had a pretty good voice and suddenly 20+ years of doubt melted away. I can’t explain why I needed validation to do something that brought me joy, whether I sucked or not, but I’m grateful my friend helped me see a little bit of my gold.
The gold found in this photo was reflected into a silver lined bottle and wrapped in wire very similar to a chain link fence. (See that vague outline of the wire in the foreground?) Sometimes you can’t cut down the barrier that blocks you from getting to your gold, but you can look through the gaps… and as you focus on the gold, you’ll find that your barriers start to fade away.
