The Silent Year (The Lost Year)

I can’t remember anymore exactly what it felt like to be silent. I remember the frustration, of course, the restlessness and the tears, but the feeling of opening my mouth and trying to push out noise that never came is lost to me now. I remember the look on Liz Lawrence’s face as she shuffled up to me on my first day back at school after the accident, but only because her face has changed so little in these last three years. I remember consoling myself with Bright Eyes lyrics, a bad habit of mine since I became a teenager. “It’s the ones with the sorest throats who have done the most singing.” I tried to think like that, tried to convince myself that surely this accident was a gift, to show me just how much my voice had mattered. Or something. Perhaps my voice had been taken away by the devil. I remember going to church and being told that. I remember feeling invisible, like an infant, inconsequential, as all of my important thoughts dissolved as soon as I attempted to present them in the din of the crowd around me, never to be heard by anyone except my myself in the back of my throat. Living in a new city was difficult enough without being mute. So was everything. Starting my junior year of high school, falling in love with a girl for the first time, struggling with my faith. Despite all the vivd pictures I have from that time, though, the most important memory has been lost to me. I can’t remember anymore exactly what it felt like to be silent. All I have left is the slight strain I feel when I raise my voice, that tug deep within my throat, and the odd shortness of breath when I try to say too much at one time. It makes me fear I’m taking my voice for granted again. Did it mean anything? Have I learned my lesson? What will it take for me to finally appreciate what I have before I lose it?