It’s been over three years since my last voice update (you can read it here), so this seems like a good time to check in. If you don’t know, my right vocal cord quit working properly in early 2021, so now my voice is soft and raspy all the time. It’s been a strange journey, but now my voice seems to have stabilized into its final form. Here are some thoughts:

• My Real Voice – Many people in my life now have never heard my real voice and never will.
• Recordings – Hardly any recordings exist of my real voice. I certainly wasn’t James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman, but it was strong. We didn’t have a video camera growing up to record my performances. My high school friend Scott has a recording of our vocal quintet Life from our talent show during senior year. I made a cassette tape (remember those?) of very rough Christmas songs as a gift for my parents one year in high school. I have one voice note on my phone of me rambling about some ideas for work. And I still have my old voicemail greeting. That’s about it.
• Work – I’m still at Southwest, splitting my time between a dispatch desk and working on our new flight planning software called Flightkeys. Working a desk isn’t too bad vocally since 1) I spend most of my time analyzing things and making decisions rather than talking, and 2) I have a phone mic next to my mouth when I do need to talk to a pilot or airport agent.
  On the other hand, Flightkeys is a large, multi-year group project, which is a bit more difficult when you can’t speak at normal volume. Large in-person meetings were a challenge because my voice faded into the general noise and didn’t command attention. Virtual meetings were always awkward because I couldn’t know how well everyone else could hear me. I assumed the worst, so I tried to talk louder to compensate, which strains my voice. But then I feared it sounded like I was angry and shouting at everyone. Fortunately, I’m done with the meeting phase of the project. Instead, I spend most of the time quietly testing and analyzing features of the software and occasionally discussing topics in-person with my team.
• Conversation Cost/Benefit – Imagine having to decide whether any given conversation is worth the physical effort/strain it requires. A soft conversation in a quiet place with the listener within 3-6 feet is fairly easy and low-cost. A “normal” conversation in an office, restaurant, or sporting event forces me to talk louder than desired and causes a strain, especially if the listener is a bit far away. Trying to talk in a really noisy place like a concert or with someone who can’t hear well is nearly impossible and very uncomfortable, and it generally makes my voice tired and softer afterward. The more I strain, the greater the toll. So I try to avoid those situations. Unfortunately, that makes me a bit anti-social. If I bow out of a social situation, please don’t take it personally.
• Job Opportunity? – One friend said my voice is sexy, and I should consider recording audiobooks or working as a smooth jazz DJ. Hmm…
• My Musical Sons – Since this saga began over four years ago, both my sons have cannonballed into music at school. Both are excellent singers and musicians. Brenden, our senior, takes four academic classes and four music classes. He sings in both the show choir and the top mixed choir, performs in the musical theater class, serves as a tenor-bass class aide, and serves as the student conductor in the choir officers’ group. He’s made all-region choir as a baritone the last three years and hopes for more this year. Jonathan, our sophomore, also takes four academic classes and four music classes. He sings bass 2 in the top choir, performs in musical theater, and plays baritone / euphonium in the Eagle Band. He also started learning piano earlier this year and is helping the musical theater group this fall with some piano work. I’m tremendously proud of all they have accomplished and thrilled that they enjoy music as much as I did. My voice lives on in my sons, only better.
• Choir Volunteer – I’ve volunteered as the social media guy / photographer for the choir for a few years (look up Lake Ridge Choir Boosters on Facebook or Instagram) and shot some of the school’s musicals and plays. This is both a way to help the groups and a way to stay connected with a world I love. When possible, I also volunteer at the TMEA all-state auditions, either in the audition room starting the music or just outside the room checking the singers in.
• Reconnecting with Choir – Reconnecting with choir floods me with emotions from the past – the nerves of an all-district candidate preparing to sing to a panel of judges hidden behind a black curtain, the thrill of nailing a difficult song in concert and seeing the director smile and relax, the wonder of becoming a drop within an ocean of sound, feeling the power and vibration from dozens of voices all around me, the disappointment of blowing an audition, the satisfaction of starting a song together with your friends and refining it until it’s the best we can make it, the resonance in my chest when I sat on a low D or E for a while and laid the foundation for the chord, the vulnerability of singing solo in front of people and laying yourself out naked for their judgment.
• Beautiful Disaster – A couple years ago Brenden went to a choir camp at UT Arlington, and all the students performed their songs afterward. I listened from the audience, my soul soaring with the beauty of their music but also getting ripped apart by knowing I couldn’t sing anymore. One song made me openly weep. I just wiped the tears away and tried to be thankful for getting to hear the music, instead of being sad I could no longer contribute.
• Regrets – After living nearly 47 years, it seems that regret is one of the hardest things to deal with – sometimes things you did, but also things you should’ve done but didn’t. I only sang two years in high school. Looking back, if I’d started in sixth grade instead of eleventh, I wonder how much better I could have been. That’s one regret. Another is getting to college and focusing too much on academics instead of singing all four years in the Baylor choir like I should have. I was there to learn important academic things and graduate in four years, and I needed to watch my degree plan to stay on track so I could graduate and get a job. Somehow I thought a casual after-class choir and some theater my freshman year would be sufficient for my artistic needs. When I finally joined the Baylor choir for my senior year, it was absolutely glorious. My final semester, we joined forces with the top choir and the Baylor Symphony to perform Mozart’s Requiem, one of the greatest performances I’ve ever participated in.
  After graduation, I moved back to DFW and sang a year with the excellent Irving Chorale – singing baritone for the first time after only singing bass for years. We had a great run, but then I got engaged and went to dispatch school and got married and bought a faraway house and became a dispatcher and moved again and switched to midnight shift and had kids and moved again and blah blah blah. Choir just didn’t fit into our life for a long time and for a number of reasons. With some effort, I could have made it work somehow. I sang a little at church for a while and plenty in the car, but never again in a more formal community choir. And now it’s too late.
• Final Performance – My final public performance happened in December 2017 at my parents’ house for Christmas. My grandparents gave me a beautiful red and black electric guitar that year. I got it early, learned a few chords, and tried to play and sing “Silent Night” for the whole family at our celebration. That morning, I got my voice really warmed up for the first time in years, reminding me of the good old days. It felt heavenly. I hope my singing was better than my playing, but that wouldn’t take much! That was my grandmother’s final Christmas. I really hope she enjoyed it.
• Time to Whistle At ‘Em – To call the boys downstairs to dinner, I whistle for them.
• The Future – It’s frustrating to have an office-type job when you have physical motivation not to speak. When I started in 2001, I expected to put in 40 years or more and retire around 65 like the script of our society. With my voice challenge and our desire to move on to other interests (traveling, writing, photography, reading, etc.), I currently hope to punch out in 8-9 years at 55 if our retirement accounts cooperate. One of my retirement activities will probably involve walking local trails and parks with a cart to pick up trash, getting some exercise and fresh air and quietly making the world a more beautiful place.

So what’s the takeaway here, besides that Andy writes too much? Life is short and full of surprises, some good and some nasty. Make a plan but be ready to adjust when life throws you a slider, because it will. Every day, every breath is a gift and opportunity. As my grandfather loved to say, “carpe diem” – seize the day.