accept. embrace. live.

I haven't worked much at all on my voice.  I downloaded that Kathe Perez program and did it for about a week, but being disciplined isn't one of my strongest qualities. I went to a couple lessons at the voice clinic at GWU, but that interfered with work too much, so I had to bag it.  So, like everything else with my transition, I decided that I'd figure it out when the time came.  The voice has gotten better over time, just through using it, through training myself to talk "up" instead of down in my throat.  But, I've always thought of my voice as the voice of a rather pathetic-sounding male; at least, that's what it has sounded like when I've heard it.  It never causes me problems, never causes me to be clocked, but I never understood why.  My therapist told me that I wasn't hearing what she was, that the whole package, the enunciation, pitch fluctuation, gestures, etc., says female.  I dunno.  I didn't see it.

Annnnnnnyway, the other night I called a friend, a trans friend, and got her voice message.  After I hung up, I decided to record one of my own; I've been using the robotic-sounding pre-recorded greeting that AT&T provides for quite some time now.  So I recorded my little message.  Cringing in anticipation of the certain assault on my ears which was to follow, I hit the pound key to play it back to see how bad it sounded...

... and Oh. My. God.  What I heard, telling me that Faline wasn't able to come to the phone, and could you please leave a message, and thanks, bye!!! was some woman's voice.  This was not my voice.  It did not resemble the voice that I hear when I talk.  Is this what other people hear?  Wow.  I played it again.  And again.  And again.  I could not believe this was my voice.  I recorded it a second time with a little more inflection to see if this was just a fluke, and whaddya know, it sounded even better.

For the rest of the evening, I sat around the house and talked to the walls, the pictures, any inanimate object which would listen.  I had quite a captive audience.  I felt so excited, like Dory in Finding Nemo when she remembered P. Sherman's address and repeated it over, and over, and over.  All I wanted to do was talk and talk and talk.  So that's what I did.  Now that I have some confidence when it comes to my voice, hopefully that will help with meeting new people and making friends.  At this point, my transition is mostly about confidence.