Justine Manzano In my earliest memory, I’m standing in a walker or some other childhood accoutrement, and I am screaming. I remember little else about this. The lights seem bright, and I am unsure of whether or not I am in the living room or dining room of my childhood home. I get the feeling that work is being done around me, the kind of heavy lifting that always led to tension between my parents. Maybe a new rug was being put in, or new furniture. I can’t remember. But what I do know is that I’m not getting a lot of attention and that bothers me. So I scream. I scream a lot. And I keep doing it, because it turns out I enjoy hearing the sound of my own voice.
Apparently, this was a thing I did. There are pictures of me sitting on the stairs on the way out the door with my mother, screaming while I played with her keys. There are pictures of me all over the house screaming. It was like I believed I was born to be heard.
Maybe I was.
We all have that. I watch my son and his friends do the same thing. When we’re kids, we look at people, and we think they should want to hear what we have to say. After all, the world is so interesting, and we’re making discoveries about it, and we don’t know if you know that really cool thing yet, so we’re going to tell you all about it. Then, you’ll love it too, you’ll share that love, and we’ll have common ground.
Children don’t ask for permission to speak. They demand it, because it never occurred to them that they should shy away from the world that’s unfolding before their eyes.
At some point, we lose that. We start to wonder what people will think about what we have to say. We start to shy away from trusting ourselves, from wanting to send our own voice out into the world, from believing that we should be heard. We should be heard.
But the public doesn’t always feel that way. If you wish to be heard, if you believe what you have to say is important, you’re going to have to ignore a lot of nay-sayers, a lot of people who would like you to get back into your box, a lot of people who believe you should shut up.
You should never shut up.
People behave as though your voice should be kept quiet. Like we should only take the time to use it to entertain our small circle, like we should never pipe up, never shout louder, never draw too much attention to ourselves.
Draw attention to yourself. If people don’t find you interesting, they don’t need to listen. The message wasn’t for them. But so many people may need that message, may need you to be the one to deliver it.
Someone once told me that those who shout loudest, often lose their voice. My response? Tell them to pop a lozenge and move forward.
Don’t let yourself be silenced by fear. Don’t let your dream be squelched because someone doesn’t think you’re cut out for it. Don’t change who you are to fit into a bubble some gatekeeper said was yours.
Be you. Unabashedly. Scream like baby Justine. Be heard. Because you deserve it.