I was sitting at the kitchen table practicing a new song when my grandma cut me off asking, “Why’d you suddenly decide to start singing? Unless you start when you’re four or five, it's pretty much a lost cause, you know.” I was fifteen.

For years, I knew that I wanted to start taking singing lessons. I brought it up to my mom many times, but my wish was put off indefinitely. I had been waiting for so long and was starting to give up hope. After all, my previous live-in music teacher, grandma, believed me to be utterly talentless.

As I started high school, I was finally enrolled in private voice lessons. Yet the voice of doubt kept chipping away at my brain. Choir never appeared on my schedule, despite my many requests to the school counselor. Most high schoolers going into choir had years of experience from middle school and were automatically accepted into the music program. I, on the other hand, came from a school with a poorly funded music department and never had the option to be in a school choir. My counselor’s disregard to my course request provided the voice of doubt with a megaphone, convincing me that most adults around me agreed with my grandma.

My senior year, burnt-out and tired of letting others make decisions for me, I emailed my guidance counselor, scheduling a meeting. This meeting was my first face-to-face request to be put into choir.
“Are you sure you want to drop down from AP Calc to fit choir into your schedule? I’m not sure that it’s the best decision to be making senior year with colleges watching your every move.”
“I’ve wanted to join choir for years now.”
That day, I secured an audition time for chamber choir.

The music director was a grumpy, older man. I worried he would hold the same opinions as my grandma.

The band room is the largest classroom in our building, excluding the gym. I stood in the vast room, blinded by the fluorescent lighting. Although I stood above the music teacher, only his desk separating us, I felt like the butt of a cigarette under his shoe.

All I could hear was the whirring of the several huge ceiling fans and my pounding heartbeat. Rows of chairs and music stands set up for the choir curved in on me, trapping me, like the rotting teeth of a hippopotamus ready to bite.

In my head, I shouted: Wait!! Hear me out, hippo, I have a song for you!

I found comfort in my sheet music, filled with scribbles of advice from my private teacher. The loopy, blending letters of Russian cursive floated across the page like clouds. They took me to a place beyond the room, to my teacher’s studio, hummingbirds zipping by tall windows.

After I finished singing, the choir director said; “You remember that class is during fourth block, right? I’ll see you Monday then!”

There were ten minutes left until fourth block when it hit that I actually had to walk into the band room to finally join the choir. I expected rows of perfectly uniform, snobby faces to snap towards me, eyes mirroring my grandmother's strict gaze.

Suddenly, my friend shoved me out of my daze and rushed me into the band room.

“Yana!” a single voice called out my name. It was followed by a chorus of familiar voices shouting, “Yana!” People I had known for a few years welcomed me like a long-lost friend. The dark, plastic chairs were hidden by my smiling classmates, their music stands adorned with overflowing binders of sheet music.

Far behind them stood a tall cabinet, shelves pulling me into their depths, each row holding a numbered choir binder. And in the bottom row stuck out a thin binder, labeled with my name in neat, gold print, carefully organized with music for the year.

Carrying that binder created just for me to my seat with an invisible name tag on it gave me certainty that I had a spot in the choir. My consciousness flitted back and forth between the band room and my private studio, the two rooms now giving me the same fluttering feeling in my stomach. I was there to sing, chosen to join. Now, much like the hummingbirds outside my teacher's studio, I fit into a flock, notes on sheet music like my sweet nectar.