Today's rambling: Quiet me
Written on Tuesday, Oct. 08, 2002 at 12:45 a.m.
while feeling a bit

I have this knack for surrounding myself with talented people. :P Kevin plays piano (very very well, might I add), and he's got a great singing voice as well. Lauren can act (she's a theatre major); and she, too, is very good at singing. Amanda is an amazing tennis player...and as I've mentioned before, basically everyone else around me is super smart. So where does that leave me? Feeling rather shadowed and untalented.

I shouldn't be whining about things like that. I mean, it sounds so petty and babyish. But I wish I could stand out in something, you know? I would love to have a beautiful singing voice. I can keep a tune, but my voice isn't powerful or moving or anything like that. Music really stirs me, and singing ability would be the greatest gift...but I don't have it. So when Kevin and Lauren are singing really pretty songs, what I'd really love to do is just jump in and start singing with them. But my voice is so flat and plain. I've got the whole radio thing going, which none of my other friends has, but I don't even really have a 'DJ voice'. Pam and Kim agreed that I have a 'kindergarten teacher voice'...and they weren't saying it in an insulting way at all, but I just have this gentle, quiet voice that doesn't lend much to the world of radio. Still, maybe I'll acquire more talent for that after I've become a little more outgoing.

So while I was listening to Kevin play the piano tonight (Lauren was downstairs auditioning for our next play), I couldn't help thinking about how boring I felt. What do I have that stands out from anybody else? Even just one little talent that, when I'm feeling down, I can cling to and feel special about. (and yes, I know the grammar in that sentence sucked, hehe...)

We went back to Lauren and Amanda's room (Amanda was at an away tennis game), and then Ashley came over because we were all going to watch "Moulin Rouge". I've been writing on a story based on one of Lauren's wacky dreams, and both she and Kevin were eager to read it. I let Kevin read it first (what I have of it thus far), and then Lauren grabbed the notebook. Well, instead of just reading it silently to herself, she decided it would be more fun to read it out loud...almost like a play. Lauren played narrator, in addition to saying her lines and Amanda's lines, and I said my lines. Kevin said his lines, Tavington's lines (as in, the bad guy from "The Patriot"), and Josh's lines (oh yeah, and the assorted other male characters).

They loved my story! Kevin was cracking up during most of it, and Lauren was bouncing up and down excitedly and demanding that I write more. She bugged me about it several times tonight, but I couldn't think of anything else to write while she was there looking over my shoulder. :P She told me at one point, completely serious, that I capture people's personalities really well. She said something about how everything that I made the various people (like her, Kevin, etc.) say, she could actually imagine them saying. Eerily enough, that's kind of similar to something my mom keeps telling me, that I have this way of writing that immediately strikes chords in people.

Anyway, that was a real confidence booster. I'm glad to know that I have some kind of talent, hehe! The only downside is that it's a quiet talent (quiet, just like everything else about me), and so it's not readily apparent to people the way singing or acting talent is. But it's talent nonetheless. I know I'll never actually be able to get anything published, because I get too discouraged to keep writing on half my stories, but it feels so good to know that I can read people that well, and paint such vivid pictures!

I feel a little less boring now. ;)