The Music Never Stopped: When Self-Consciousness Steals Your Voice

There's a moment in The Strangest of Places where Autumn retells her mother's story of being chosen to sing "O Holy Night" as a church soloist on Christmas Eve. She'd woken up that morning with her voice completely gone—couldn't speak, couldn't sing. Panic set in. But as the hours passed, with endless cups of tea with honey, her voice returned, and when the moment came, she walked up to that altar and nailed it.

It's the kind that becomes family legend, retold every holiday season with the same dramatic beats: the fear, the impossible timing, the triumph.

I heard that exact story growing up from my own mother, recounting her experience as one of the stars of the school choir at Archbiship Williams High School. I loved hearing that story and often asked my mother to tell it to me again. I wanted to be like her and imagined myself confident enough to stand in front of a church full of people and sing.

For a while, I thought maybe I could be.

When I Still Sang Out Loud

I loved singing Christmas carols in elementary school. There was something magical about learning those songs—the harmony, the tradition, the way they made you feel part of something bigger than yourself. I didn't have words for it then, but looking back, I think it was the weight of cultural identity as an Irish Catholic, of belonging to this long chain of people who'd sung the same songs for generations.

My mother told me I had a lovely voice. She suggested asking our parish's priest if I could sing one of the songs I had been practicing for my parochial schools' Christmas pageant (in a different parish) at our local church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

She was proud of me.

My mom said "I love you" on a pretty regular basis, but that was really the extent of how emotions were communicated in our family. Direct statements or declarations beyond those three words were rare, so I learned to read between the lines. She thought I was talented enough to sing on a stage, in front of other people, just like she did. That was pride.

I was excited. Nervous, but excited.

Mom asked, but the priest politely declined with the explanation that if he said yes to her, he'd have all the parents in the parish knocking down his door to let their kids sing every Christmas. He said I might have the voice of an angel, but if he didn't want to open that can of worms.

I remember feeling disappointed but understanding; it made sense. Fair is fair.

The Moment I Lost My Voice

A few years later, my mother had dropped me off with her friend, Carol, while she went out to do some Christmas shopping; I was probably around 10 years old. My mother must have said something to her about my singing, because she asked if I'd sing something for her.

I wanted to make her happy, and I tried, but I just couldn't do it with her watching me. She suggested that I try singing from her dining room so she couldn't see me; we'd be separated by just a wall. That seemed to work. I poured everything into it, eyes closed, pretending I was alone.

When I finished, I opened my eyes and caught Carol peeking around the corner, smiling.

I was mortified.

Not because she'd done anything wrong—she was just being kind, enjoying the performance. But the fact that she'd been watching me, even if it was just a few seconds, made my stomach drop.

That's when I knew: standing on a stage and singing (or doing anything, really) was never going to be something I could do, no matter how much I loved it.

Two Different People

My mother and I are very different people.

She woke up voiceless on the day she was supposed to solo in front of the entire congregation, and when her voice came back, she walked up there and sang like her life depended on it.

I had a voice, I just couldn't use it in front of anyone.

She carried confidence I never inherited. Or maybe I did inherit it, but somewhere along the way—between the priest saying no and my babysitter's kind smile—I learned to silence it.

Autumn is like me in this way. She loves music and feels it deeply, but she experiences it as a listener, not a performer. She finds her people at shows, in crowds, where she can disappear into the collective energy without having to be seen.

Her mother was the soloist. Autumn was the one in the back, singing along under her breath.

The Gifts We Don't Inherit

I think about this sometimes—how self-consciousness can creep in so early and so quietly that by the time you notice it, it's already part of you.

I wish I knew why my mother's confidence didn't transfer to me, even though her love of music did. Was it because she had a loving father and mine was absent? Maybe.

I wonder what it would have been like if that priest had said yes. If I'd gotten to sing at church, just once. Would that have been enough to change my ability to sing in front of Carol? Or would I have frozen on stage anyway?

I'll never know.

But I do know this: just because you can't perform doesn't mean the music isn't in you. It just means you find other ways to let it out.

For me, it's writing about characters who feel things deeply but struggle to express them. Characters who love music but experience it from the audience, not the stage. People like Autumn, who are shaped by the voices they couldn't find—and the ones they did.

Maybe that's the gift I did inherit from my mother: the music. Just not the courage to stand up and sing it alone.

But I'm okay with that; I found my own way to shine.

It just happens to be on pixels and pages instead of spotlights and stages.