Reality Wins

When I was younger I spent most summer days home alone while my Mom worked. I remember being home for hours with nothing to do but listen to a record player with a borrowed copy of Tommy by The Who and a television set (that you changed channels by getting up and turning the knob). I am very aware of the loneliness of that time even now.

I would spend hours singing at the top of my lungs with the windows open certain that any minute I would be discovered by someone famous and whisked away to share my vocal styling with the rest of the world. I had my life all sorted out in my head. All the way through high school I was certain that someday I would be a famous singer like Barbara Streisand. I even went so far as to recruit my best friend in high school to be my costume designer. I can look back now and laugh at my naive thinking or maybe not laugh, but at least give a pathetic smirk.

My life is so far from that idea, that I wonder what I was thinking. How did I not live my dream? How is it possible that my life turned out so differently? I think now about how singing and music has always been a part of my life, if not through me then through all three of my girls. I even remember driving everywhere when all the girls were little with the radio turned up, singing at the top of my lungs once again. Eventually all the girls started singing along and music became a focus in their lives as well.

It all started with a lonely girl one summer and has rolled out into three beautiful girls that sing and love music. I would like to tell you that my soul is no longer lonely, or that I have overcome my desire to sing one day, but I have not. At 51 I still have days when I feel like I have nowhere to turn and no one to talk to and I wish that I had lived my dream. But here is the thing, this is where I am, I am in the right place and my life is what it is suppose to be. I have the best life and a wonderful family that allows me to act crazy and lose my temper and they still love. This is bigger than the dream of a lonely little girl, it is reality and in the end, reality wins every time.