I lost my voice this week. For three agonizing days, my throat has hurt to talk, and while I’m not what you would call “chatty,” I am a communicator, and having a weak voice at best has been frustrating.
My son, God love him, who is almost 6, thinks it’s hilarious to say, “What? I can’t hear you” when I ask him a question. I’m pretty sure he can hear me, and I’m not always patient in my reply.
Photo by David Mao | via unsplash
The first day, I was whispering and then a friend told me that whispering is actually harder on your voice than regular speaking, so I gave up on that and tried to use my voice at whatever level I could. My daughter, who is 7 1/2, took to repeating everything I said so that her brother would attempt to follow directions. I gestured a lot and tried to communicate messages to my husband so he could speak for me. I’m not sure I realized how much I talk to the kids until I couldn’t.
It’s exhausting to have no voice. Everything is harder. I haven’t received many phone calls, which is good, because I would probably let most of them go to voicemail. I’m grateful to still have the ability to text and e-mail and write things on Facebook, so at the end of the day I still feel like I’ve communicated something. But it’s hard for me to resist speaking to my in-real-life people.
There’s a moment each morning when I wonder if my voice has come back. I’m almost reluctant to try it out because of the disappointment I’ll feel if it hasn’t returned. Each day shows some improvement, but I’m not sure when I’ll be fully functional again.
To read the rest, head over to Putting on the New, where I blog on the 12th day of each month.