I have been trained to believe that my voice doesn't matter. I've been conditioned to believe this. This has been beaten into me since I was probably seven years old.
I wasn't shy when I was seven. I was outgoing. I talked to everyone without a problem. I made friends like it was nothing. I babbled on and on and on and on.
I don't remember when or how it started. Seven is a rough estimate, and I assume it started at the dinner table one night. Everything that happens to me happens at the dinner table.
I guess one day I just went to tell a story, and nobody cared enough to listen. My brother decided his voice was more important, so he talked over me. I would start a story, and he would talk right over me.
I still tried to talk. I still tried to tell my stories.
And he still talked over me, and nobody at the dinner table cared enough to tell him to shut up and let me talk. I wanted so badly to scream those words out in the middle of the dining room or a restaurant. I wanted to just yell at him to let me talk. To yell at all of them to listen to me.
But they didn't.
And eventually my voice grew quieter, so when he went to talk over me, it was even easier for him to do it. He was louder, so even if I kept talking, nobody else would hear me over him.
And eventually my voice grew silent. I decided to just not talk because nobody cared enough to listen. I went so many meals without saying anything other than my order to the waitress. I went so many meals where I just sat there staring at the moving mouth of my family members and the attentive eyes they placed on the speaker. I stared and wondered why they never did that for me. Why they never let me speak. Why they never listened.
Sometimes I would even test it. It was a little game I played to see if they listened. My dad would ask how our days were, and I would say it was the worst day of my life. I would say I hated my life. I would say that I hated everyone around me.
He never once replied to me. He heard my brothers say their days were good, and he talked to them about that. He talked to them and ignored the fact that I was slowly losing myself.
And suddenly I was shy. I didn't talk much at school anymore. I never volunteered my answers in class. If a teacher called on me, I wanted nothing more than to hide under my desk until she forgot I was even there and moved on just like everyone else in my family did at the dinner table. Making friends was a challenge because I couldn't talk to anyone.
Now I am seventeen, and I am shy. I don't babble on like I did when I was seven. I sit alone with one of my divorced parents at our separate dining room tables in our separate houses, and I don't speak. My dad sits with his phone and texts his girlfriend's sons. My mom talks about work, and I zone her out because I don't understand what it is that she does. I remain silent.
I was trained to think my voice didn't matter, so I write. I write every story I ever wanted to tell at the dining room table. I speak every word I ever wanted to say but was discouraged from. I write because when I do, my words matter. My voice matters. People listen. They want to listen.
And to every other kid who has learned to be silent, pick up a pen. Let your words and thoughts and stories spill out onto the paper. You will find someone to listen to you, even if that someone is actually a something and that thing is just the paper itself.
Your voice matters. Never forget it. Never let anyone tell you it doesn't.