My voice, face, etc.

Recently I realised something about my voice, here's a thing for some reason or other about that. So I grew up in a fair few places. Sri Lanka, Rochford, Norfolk, High Wycombe, Grimsby, Louth, Sleaford, Spalding. Not a lot but that's between the ages of 0-18. Most of my formative years, aged 8-16, were spent in Grimsby/Louth, does anyone know how folk from the old fishing port sound? Hull/Yorkshire/Lincolnshire.

So you'd expect me to sound that way, alas I don't. I sound quite neutral, non regional diction, newsreader. Not home counties, it's "plant" not "plarnt" etc. Now I assumed that my voice just morphed as a result of my moving about so frequently. Alas that 8 year block in one location should've set it up to be a certain way. I say this because I noticed that my friend who grew up there still sound that way, they live all over the shop now.

So why did my voice become the way it is. I recently discovered that my original voice still exists, but I have to make a conscious switch over to it. I default to my neutral speech pattern. The neutral voice comes with added bass, odd right?

My "original" voice has a bit of lisp, not a proper lisp. One that has bit of a "shhhh" at the end of words, does that make any sense? Come have a chat I'll see if I can reel demonstrate it for you. I would suspect that I hid my "northerness" unconsciously. I hide a great deal about myself.

Growing up I was the fat lad, so I wore oversized clothing, to hide away my overweight body. English wasn't my first language, so I didn't speak up much, to hide my accent. I think that has carried on to today. Before the move to England I was a boisterous showboat. Now I'm a boisterous introvert.

This has extended further into my career choices, accounting. Behind the scenes, key, but not centre stage.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that what I have built and presented to the world as me, may not really be who I am. Then there's the whole argument about are you "born" as you are, do you become who you are, or can you create yourself. I suspect all three are true.

I want to be out there talking to people, making a difference, hands on. But that frightens me, I don't know why. There was a point where I consciously moved towards my discomfort, finding what frightened me and doing it. Generally finding that whatever it was was not so frightening after all. Then my back broke, read all about it here, that's part one, there are four parts in total.

The effect that had one me... I wanted to go back to how I was before. But when something so heavy happens there's a bunch of stuff that comes with it that needs to be dealt with. No more heavy lifting, piggybacks, etc. I was always the big strong fellow, a physical identity that was obvious. Now who am I? I don't know.

So I suppose that's where I am now. I don't really know who I am. I like to write, but so what. I like to read too, and travel, and talk, eat, analyse, dissect, poke holes etc.