You know, writing and singing songs on a stage in front of thousands of screaming fans. That kind of thing.

Well, I got older, and older, and “life” seemed to get in the way. I all but abandoned that dream for the last fifteen years.

See, I’ve been doing some concentrated living since I graduated high school. I had a kid, got married, had another kid, started a couple of businesses, lost a couple of businesses, and bascially set about living a normal life, instead of chasing after some “hare-brained, childish dream” from a time when my hips were a lot slimmer, and my hair wasn’t even starting to grey.

Then, a friend of mine, who holds a weekly meeting for spiritually minded folks at her shoppe, suggested we all put together vision boards.

I’d been saving up all kinds of bits of paper I’d been wanting to put on a board. I even bought a “life boarding” kit on deep discount back when Borders was going out of business. So I came with all my scraps of paper, a handful of magazines, and realized I didn’t have nearly enough to fill up the board in a way that made me feel worthy.

Which I recognize is crap, but at the time, that’s how I felt.

So I started flipping through some other magazines, and found a few other pictures that caught my fancy. Among them a picture of Bradley Cooper wearing a t-shirt that spoke to me. I glued him down, and plastered another bit of text over his shirt so that it read:

“What if… starts with me”

I’ve been on a big ol “what if” jag for a few months, so I thought it was a cool motivator.

See, some people think “what if” is a downer, a moot point, and a needless waste of breath.

I confess I used to think that way, too.

But now, I see it as a catalyst to potential greatness.

And it’s led me to today’s story.

See, after gluing Bradley down to my board, I became intensely interested in him. I really hadn’t paid him much attention before he was glued to a board I was ogling every morning. In fact, I had watched “All About Steve” and didn’t even realize he starred in it! But he was the only celebrity I had glued to my board, so I figured I should at least know something about him. My research (thank you Wikipedia) led me to two very important discoveries.

The first is that Bradley Cooper and I share the exact same birthdate (month, day and year!). The same cold, snowy Sunday in January, our moms were both in labor. That struck me as TOO much of a coincidence. It drove me to find another connection.

I didn’t really find anything else, but in my search, I came across a press release about a new TV series called “Duets” that ABC is launching this summer. They’re looking for people who want to sing with one of four amazing vocalists. Among them Lionel Richie.

So I put my Bradley Cooper obsession aside for a few minutes and sent an email to the casting folks, indicating my interest in the show.

Then (and this is where I nearly made a baby cry, I was screaming so loud), they sent me an email back, asking for an audition video.

That’s when I realized there’s no such thing as “on a whim” – God knows exactly what he’s doing.

I gave up on being a professional singer more than a decade ago. Yeah, I recorded a couple of albums, but I think I’ve maybe sold about 30 copies total. I wanted to do something later this year, maybe record a new album, but I wasn’t feeling very confident about it, until I auditioned for Duets.

Because even if I DON’T make the cut for the show, I’ll be infinitely farther along than all the people who never even had the courage to audition. And I think I’ve got a pretty good chance at advancing at least to the next round – whatever that looks like.

I spent most of the weekend obsessing over, scripting, shooting and re-shooting the video. Then I sent it, according to their rules.

Then I got an email saying the rules had changed, so I re-sent it.

In the mean time, I also reached out to my friends for encouragement, support, and even some helpful advice (many thanks to @fitarella for her great suggestions).

I learned that I have some amazing friends. People who really want to see me shine and succeed and achieve my dreams.

Which makes me a winner already.

So if you want to see what happens, keep watching. I’ll let you know as soon as I have something I can report. Until then, thanks for being on this journey with me.

In fact, the birthday wasn’t much different from every other day this year. I had promised myself to take the day off, but it just wasn’t very convenient to do so.

So I walked the kid to school, and worked on website issues with my tech team, and dealt with a few “fires” that had to be put out.

It was pretty much an uneventful birthday.

At first, this did not set well with me. See, I’m an action taker – a DO-er – and sitting around NOT doing what I wanted to do kind of pissed me off.

Add to that the fact that my husband didn’t even have a birthday card for me that morning (he came home with one, though), and the day was NOT going to my liking.

I’m kind of crabby right now about my husband’s new work schedule. Last year, his schedule allowed him to pick our youngest son up from school each afternoon, giving me an opportunity to finish up my work before they got home, have dinner ready, and spend the evening doing at least one family-oriented activity together.

But now, I’m doing the dropping off and the picking up. At first, I thought I’d be okay with that (God knows I could use the exercise!), but yesterday was my birthday, and I was feeling a bit crabby about it, to be frank. In between, I’d squeeze in some “me” time by hanging out on social media and checking my email (yep, that’s what I do for fun. I’m strange. I know).

Well, my inbox (which hasn’t had fewer than 500 unread messages in years) had no less than three emails from coaching clients indicating a problem with the website.

Joy.

Now, I could have easily ignored these emails – I had told them I was taking the day off, after all. But that’s not how I roll.

You can scold me later. Right now I have a story to finish.

So I put the word out to my tech people to see what the dealio was. And then I started kicking myself for reading emails on my “day off”.

See? I told you to scold me later!

Anywho, the rest of the afternoon went by uneventfully, as I tried to step away from the computer and “enjoy” myself.

But I couldn’t. I was hurting too much.

I didn’t realize it until today, but that’s why I was glued to my computer.

See, pulling myself away from my electronics would have forced me to feel the uncomfortableness and isolation I was experiencing. It would have allowed the resentment, pain and tears to rise to the surface, and then I would have started bitching and moaning about how it was my birthday, and my husband didn’t even get me a card and all that crap.

Yeah. That.

And quite frankly, because it was my birthday, I didn’t WANT to feel that way. So I stuck my nose in my laptop until it was time to walk to the school and pick up the kid. We walked home. I read him a story, and I let him watch Netflix while I went back to trying to troubleshoot the website issue.

And then my husband walked in with a grocery bag. He was late coming home because he was at the store, picking up my birthday card among other things, and had forgotten that I wanted to go visit my friend Rhonda’s shop that evening. Actually, I have to take some ownership for that, because I didn’t put it on the calendar on the fridge. Mostly because I had been talking about it all freaking week.

So when he got home, I went by myself.

Apparently the City of Flint did not get the memo about it being my birthday, because there wasn’t a single place to park on the whole block. So I drove around and parked a block up.

I walked into the shop – bustling with activity, as I was there for a special event. A spirited gathering of spiritual seekers, this group was quite a cross-section of the community: young, old, black, white, wealthy, poor. It was a delicious mingling of kindred spirits.

THIS was how I wanted my birthday to be.

I’m reminded of the passage in the bible about the wedding, where “good people” were invited, but didn’t come, and how the king was so enraged, he decided to invite “just anyone” off the street who could get there to attend.

Not that I’m a king or anything of the sort.

But here, in a room of mostly strangers, they sang to me. And I cried, which is sappy, but hey, I’m cute like that.

It was sad and wonderful all at the same time.

It reinforced for me the need to create what I want myself instead of waiting for someone else to bestow it on my behalf. It highlighted how I’ve been using my computer to self-medicate and distract myself from really feeling what I’m experiencing.

It clarified so many things for me. My birthdays tend to do that.

So I’ve got some work to do. And the good news is that I’m not doing alone. I’ve been blessed with pretty cool friends – and apparently some pretty cool strangers – to help me on the journey. And you’ll be along for that ride too, if you’re here with me.

So what’s all this babble got to do with you? Well, think about this: where are you distracting yourself from really living your life?

Why?

What are you going to do about it?

I’m standing here, breathing in the final moments of the show.

Recalling the highlights, the laughter, the flubs, and the tender moments.

Reliving the looks on my actors’ faces at Intermission as I shared audience responses, technical issues, and notes regarding their projection, tone, and enunciation.

Bittersweetness washes over me, as the sounds in the room change: hammers pounding pins into flats, men hoisting the bar off the stage and back onto the floor. Brooms sweeping the floor, costumes being piled on the table, set pieces being returned to their homes in storage… and the chatter of the cast and crew as we wrap up, pack up, and clear away any trace of the production.

Strike always gets me.

It’s the completion of the circle of life of a show. We begin mostly as strangers, with a bare stage. We rehearse, almost in secret, in an upper room of the theater. It isn’t until the bulk of the set is present that we take to the stage and begin the process of bringing vitality to these two dimensional characters.

Then the lights, sound and music emerge, creating new challenges, adding new dimensions to the tapestry.

And the curtain goes up on opening night… and the friends I’ve come to know disappear as they slip deeper and deeper into their characters, becoming those people for a fortnight. Then, as quickly as they stepped into those roles, they’re stepping out again, pulling down set dressing, saying our goodbyes one last time.

It’s in this moment that I see the show’s “life” flash before my eyes – much like the flash of the camera as the show’s highlights are snapped off one after another by the photographer. I’m reminded that everything comes to an end – and in that ending, an opening is created for a new beginning.

But tonight, I enjoy the company of my cast and crew, our producer and managing partner. We celebrate a great review, the kinship of this rag tag bunch of actors, and relive some of the humorous moments of the show.

It will be a bit sad to head home tonight, and I know I’ll probably mourn this show a little. But right now, I’m just enjoying this moment, soaking in these wonderful people, this wonderful place, and all the memories we’ve created for ourselves and our audience.

We’ve touched people and changed lives. That’s something of which we can be proud.

I’m already thinking about what my next project will be, and how to make it happen faster, so I’m not living in the limbo. But for now, tonight, I’m here. Enjoying, drinking it all in, until the next circle begins.