Voiceless

I have lost my voice. Every year like clockwork, when the pollen count gets high enough and my allergies go bonkers, I am bound to lose my voice for some period of time. For three days now I have not been able to speak above a whisper.

Right now I'm feeling okay enough to speak in full sentences, paragraphs even, if I feel it's necessary, even though the volume is barely turned on. Yesterday I wasn't feeling up to speaking in complete sentences, so this is a huge improvement. Three days in and it's getting to be a real frustration not being heard, especially considering that I have a loud voice and am one of those people who will make herself heard if need be.

If you were worried that this was going to be a heart-warming story of how the belligerent young woman learned a valuable lesson from her involuntary silence, never fear. I've actually learned more about how much you need your voice just to get through the day. Already, I have accidentally snubbed a number of people because I couldn't vocalize a greeting loud enough to return theirs. The most annoying thing is the phone--my voice is way too small to carry on a conversation properly and talking on the phone is an exercise in frustration.

People's reactions are really amusing. One of my co-workers said I sound sinister as he beat his fingers together Mr. Burns-style. Another said that she wondered if I was trying to sound sexy. I laughed, which is downright frightening as it sounds less like a laugh and more like a death rattle.

The funniest thing, though, is since I have to whisper to people, the vast majority of them fall right into it and start whispering right back as if we were having an intimate conversation. People are so used to responding automatically to cues in their enviroment that even though they know that the cue doesn't mean what it usually means, they still respond as if it did. It's so ingrained to start whispering when others do that people caught themselves whispering in a meeting earlier today because I was. We human beings don't mean to be followers, but nonetheless we are. Now that's something to think about.