Still Believing

One day, when I was 5 years old, I was listening to records playing on our old Victrola. It was one of my favorite things to do, to sing along. This particular day, it was Peter, Paul and Mary singing and I remember saying to my mother, “I’m going to do that someday. I’m going to sing like them.” I’m certain she gave some non-commital comment like, “That’s nice.” In my family, children don’t grow up to be singers. Not outside of church choirs or showers anyway.

Fast forward past high school musicals, summer stock theater, and singing solos with the choir. It was 1994. I had just moved back to the States from Canada. There was an announcement from the pulpit that a Christian rock band was forming and they were auditioning lead singers.

I held my breath. I think my heart skipped a beat. This felt like the moment I had been waiting for my whole life. The little girl who grew up to sing with the band, just like she imagined.

I got the gig.

It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. For 3 years, we practiced, we wrote our own songs. We played every week at the Saturday night service. We were invited to perform at other churches and venues. It was a dream come true.

Then life happened.

Fast forward to 2015. It was early December. I was attending a webinar for entrepreneurs. I was beginning a life coaching practice at the time. The instructor gave us an assignment and 10 minutes to do it. She asked us to think back to when we were children. What did you want to be when you grew up? I stared out the window. I wanted to be a singer. To sing my little songs. That’s all. My eyes filled up with tears.

At that very moment, a hawk swooped by my city window, circled, and landed on a branch nearby, where I could see his eyes, staring at me piercingly, as if to say, “So what are you going to do about that?” I had never seen a hawk there in that tree. Nor have I since.

“But what can I do?” I had a whole pile of songs I had written. But what could I do with them?

“You could record them.”

It was ludicrous. But I thought, what is the harm in exploring it?

So that afternoon, I googled ‘recording studios near me.’ I found one that was about 15 minutes away. I called and made an appointment for that very evening. Before the day was through, I had booked the studio and engineer for the following week. By the end of the year, I had recorded and published my first single. A milestone.

A dream come true.

And by April, I had the whole album done and distributed to all the music channels around.

Then life happened.

It all got stuffed in the trash along with my aspirations on his way out the door.

Fast forward to today. My music got a second chance to see the light of day. I uploaded a music video on YouTube of a song I wrote in 2010, called Desperate Times.

I wonder… do you have a dream whose time has come to dust it off and give it a second chance?

George Eliot said, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” I saw that on a billboard once. I never forgot it.

Five-year-old me might have said that. She probably would have told me to keep believing. She was silly that way.

Dreams are funny things. They don’t push, they pull. They call you. Even when they go into the closet and gather dust, they still have a life, a voice, and a golden plan. One just has to say yes. There is a back-to-nature, organic, wild, and untamed texture to the dreams of a child. All we are saying yes to is the version of us that we tried to tame and corral.

The tonic for today, distilled down into three simple things: Listen to your heart. Second chances. Don’t give up.

Looking for bite-sized daily wisdom, hope and encouragement? Check out “Lessons in the Key of Today” on the Divine Moonshine YouTube channel.

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