I returned to the choir after the conductor mocked my accent years ago

Dear Delyara, I stopped singing publicly after a conductor joked that my accent made certain lyrics sound “too foreign.” Everyone laughed. I laughed too and never returned the next week. Twelve years passed. I still sang at home. Last year, a friend convinced me to try a community choir with a different director. I told her why I was nervous. She said accents belong in choirs because voices do. I stayed. Tonight, we performed our first concert. My accent did not disappear when I sang. I could hear it in certain vowels. I let it remain. Afterward, an older woman in the audience told me she loved the warmth of my voice. Self-esteem has not made the old humiliation meaningless. It has stopped one careless joke from being the final authority on whether I am allowed to sing where other people can hear me.