Singing out of tune

I went on a road trip about a month ago to Spearfish, SD. What is in Spearfish, SD you ask? Good friends. And Sturgis motorcycle rally goers. Apparently I should have checked Harley.com before planning my trip.

I went to Sioux Falls first to pick up a friend to join me on the journey. She is a good friend I met my freshman year of college. She was a junior and couldn't stand me. She thought I was too sassy the first day I walked into choir with my ball cap on backwards and cracking jokes with anyone in my vicinity. However, I quickly won her over and she's been one of my closet friends for over 10 years. But, we are still very different. I'm still quite sassy and she is learning how to not be embarrassed by me little by little.

Like most people on road trips I crank the stereo as loud as it will go and sing along at the top of my lungs, but the difference is I sing the harmony and not the melody. My roadtrippin' friend asked me, "How do you know all the notes for harmony?" The truth is I don't know all the notes. I make them up as I go. I try to listen for the right harmony. Sometimes I'm wrong. Very wrong. I can be singing a great harmony to Brooke Fraser, Shane and Shane or Dave Barnes and then out of nowhere I hit a note that would send dogs running home with a whimper. I responded to her inquiry with an air that I knew would challenge her. "You are a better singer than me. Why don't you sing the harmony?" She replied, "Because I get notes wrong." She obviously hadn't been listening closely to my little "concert" on the driver's seat stage.

Someone once said, "If you are going to fail, fail BIG". I wish I could say that in all areas of my life I take risks and fail with the kind of gusto that makes people question whether I really failed at all. But the truth is, it's easy to fail with confidence from the confines of your car. I lack the stamina and character to fail in front of a crowd, out of the safety zone of comfort. When I make decisions I often find myself evaluating every possible outcome to the point where I don't make a decision at all. I'm so afraid to fail that I don't take action at all. I stack the cards in my favor. I'll do things I know I'll succeed at. Where is the growth in that?

So, there is this recurring theme of courage coming to the surface again and again. It's time to be brave and sing the harmony, even out of tune, beyond the steel cage of my Hyundia Elantra. Singing out of tune outside of my comfort zone is so much better than singing in tune in my small little world and hopefully I'll eventually learn the right notes...