No, I’m not going to talk about
Frank Sinatra or about the TV reality show that bears that name. Instead, I am
dedicating this space to one of the most distinctive characteristics that
definitely make me who I am: my one and only voice! I must start saying that for most of my life
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my voice and although generally speaking
I’ve come to terms with it, even nowadays at times I’m totally fine with it but
at other times I can’t deal with it…
In case you don’t recall it (I truly
doubt it as it just cannot be forgotten), I have a rather strong, deep voice
that can be heard from quite a distance. As a matter of fact, for me it is just
physically impossible to whisper…in the past I’ve gotten in trouble a few times
because people were able to hear comments that were meant to be heard only by
me or those that were close to me. I know better now so I generally just keep
my thoughts to myself.
One of the things that I totally
loathed when I was a child was that whenever I answered the phone, invariably
the person at the other end of the line would think it was my brother. Nothing
would make me feel worse than some friend of my dad’s calling me “varón” (boy
in Spanish) over the phone. It bothered me so much…the very girly girl I always
was felt totally aggravated! How dare did they?
As I grew older though, things
changed a bit: over the phone people now think they are speaking with either my
sister or my mom instead of me all the time. Yes, the three of us share this
distinctive voice, along with a few other similarities, thanks to genetics. This
doesn’t bother me, of course. I kind of see our voice as a family signature,
which is a nice feature to share.
Yet, I do realize that this voice
can be intimidating at times…hey, I totally understand, I get intimidated
myself when I hear it in a video or in a recording! At one point in my life, it
became clear to me that I had to tone it down. Otherwise, people would think I
was patronizing them all the time. After all, it is very challenging to be seen
as gentle and polite when what comes out of your mouth may give exactly the
opposite impression. So, in the last years I’ve been making an extra effort to
sound smoother, if at all possible. I truly hope I’ve accomplished that!
Now, there are positive aspects
to having such deep voice. For instance, I’ve encountered that because of it I
am taken more seriously. In that sense, my voice certainly makes up somehow for
not being a tall person. Since people assume I’m younger based on my height it
is likely they would probably see me as less mature or professional should my
voice had less character…or at least I want to believe that.
And speaking of little people, my
voice also seems to have a particular appeal among babies: they seem to pay
special attention when they hear me speak…even those still in their mommy’s
belly! Yep, a couple of years ago one of my co-workers was pregnant and
whenever I came by her office and I started talking, the baby would immediately
start kicking. True story!
I guess
without such a peculiar voice I’d probably go unnoticed in general. For good or
bad, people usually remember me because of my voice. It just occurred to me
that perhaps it’s time that I pursue a career in radio or something similar…I
should have thought of that possibility earlier!