The pressure on my chest has almost entirely subsided.

First, my life had to grind to a complete halt when I became actually too sick to go to work which was quickly followed up by the one-two punch of our snow-storm and losing my voice completely on the same pair of days.

That was unspeakably lovely, let me tell you.

Losing my voice is terrifying for me. You’d think as an only child with a constantly-running internal monologue I wouldn’t mind it so much, since I grew up entirely inside my own head. Yet, on some days my voice is the only thing in my life I feel like I have real control over. I know it can be quick and swishy when I’m talking at rapid-fire pace, but I’m a long way from the boy with no indoor voice or the guy who lost his voice after every big show. I know how to use my voice with intent now, and it’s a big part of my identity – even beyond singing

That’s why this week was so punishing – I didn’t do anything wrong, really, except sing lightly on it for one night, but my entire chest area was in an precarious enough state of affairs that that did me in.

The terrible thing is that in this new age of Peter when I lose my voice I go into this shame/self-pity spiral where I don’t want to do ANYTHING. I had planned to do a special recording project to promote the show last night (more on that tomorrow), and I couldn’t do that. Then I went into petulant mode, where I didn’t want to do anything for the blog because I was angry that being sick put me off my blog schedule.

I remembered a time before my voice really mattered to me – before I even had an inkling of singing and was still a neophyte on the stage. Back then my voice wasn’t what you’d hear out loud coming from my mouth. It was my words on a page. And, even being so hoarse that it hurts to squeak out a whisper can’t deny me that.

So, I started the next book of my NaNoWriMo project. Actually, more than started it – I wrote over 10,000 words in two days, a total bolt of plot I had only a vague idea of before I started.

Now I have my voice back (shockingly intact after last night), the start of a new book, and a chest newly free of pressure.

It feels really good.