Dreams...

Today, I am reminded of dreams. I had dreams of being a champion figure skater, of starring in musicals. I took lessons in dance, sang in choirs, belonged to theatre companies. 

I struggled to ace the dance part of the auditions in particular. I took a great adult ballet class that always began with the same routine workout but included a new set of steps we had to learn each week. Through this I became more proficient in picking up and repeating steps, so important for a dance audition. 

I suffered a lot of stage fright as a singer so I took acting classes thinking it would help me feel better on stage. It's funny I didn't even think of taking singing lessons even though, all of it, everything I did, was so I could be part of a musical presentation. 

I wonder now if I 'didn't think of it' because I couldn't even go there. On a very fundamental level I didn't want to study the thing I wanted most to do, for fear I would be told - that it would be confirmed - that I was not good enough to do it. Rather than face that possibility, I avoided it completely. 

Life moved on, I gave up doing theatre, dance, choirs. I got busy working, doing overtime and living the kind of life where you never wear the same thing to the office, where gossip at the water cooler was the predominant force affecting your self-esteem, where I overate lunch at the company canteen watching soap operas. I was desperately unhappy but so sure being married and working at a big international firm's head office, spending my money on clothes for work, and being in every way as perfect as possible was what was required in order for me to be considered a 'good person'.

None of those things are inherently wrong, but they were wrong for me. I was denying everything I wanted to be and do in order to fit someone else's dream. It was a patched together vision of impressions and expectations of me integrated from others over my formative years. It was created as a path for me to walk so that I would be acceptable. Because I couldn't possibly make those choices for myself. I was flawed and needed to follow the scripts set down for me by others who knew better and whose opinion was so important to me I was willing to sacrifice my own heart and soul to be 'good enough' in their eyes.

I gave up so much of myself. I had been taught I had no value, was a loser, would never amount to anything, wasted space. At home, at school, at work. No matter how competent I was, how many promotions I got, how much I was lauded for being organized, it was never enough for me to feel whole. To be less panicked. To feel safe.

One long sleepless night I finally came to a place where I realized how lost I was. I didn't know what the future would hold, but I felt, if I took one more step down the 'be the good person in everyone else's eyes' road, I would lose myself forever.

I did a lot of soul searching after that. Who am I? Me, not someone else's version of me. Me. Who do I want to be?

Through all of it, over time, I began to know two things: I want to live a creative life. I want to live a musical life. 

As Tolkein says, 'the road goes ever on and on.' From then til now, and for the future, I continue to live creatively and musically, with fits and starts, ups and downs, detours and lostness. Yet this feels more authentic and more me than anything that went before. 

In many ways the dreams I had when I was young live with me every day as I write, compose, design. It's a simple thing, to do the thing you love to do, one would think, yet it can be the hardest thing of all. I am grateful for the support and encouragement of those who accept me as I am. And I continue to dream. I will always dream.