Chase that dream

My best friend is a singer. Now, she has never made it big, never had a record deal or ever stood on a stage with Patti, Aretha or Whitney (pre-cracky-ness), but she can blow. Now I do not say that lightly or to brag. She has a beautiful 5-octave range and is a beautiful person through and through. But I did not come to discuss her beauty.

I came because I now understand why she has persevered with her desire to be a singer and what pursuing your dreams really means .

Since I have known her singing is really ALL she’s ever wanted to do. Though she is very intelligent and very proactive, she didn’t really want to pursue her major in college which was journalism. She wanted to sing. She left school subsequently to do just that. She got a gig touring with the now defunct house music group ‘ Inner City’ and after she returned from Europe, she never completed her degree. I have always held a secret anger at her for leaving and not finishing her degree. Why? Because as a black woman n America, I felt that a degree would give her the leverage WHILE she was seeking fame and fortune, to get a small piece o’ the pie. So how has she survived you ask? Well, until she got married, she’d lived with her Mom off and on while holding down a variety of jobs......waitress being the most common of them. She waitressed at a Chilli/Spaghetti joint and most recently at Big Boy. But she never lost hope. Never gave up and never let herself get so down that she did not return to that which she loved. Signing.

Because she would often compare our lives and become disheartened when she didn't have the money to shop (because oh, you had BETTER DAMN believe she is a DIVA in every sense of the word!)and say “but Robyn you can do this, or that, etc.” and I have always thought “well, if your ass went to SCHOOL you could do all those things that those of us in the work world can do too!”. But I never made that statement to her. I know that she would have felt that me, her sister from another mother, along with the rest of the Joe Shmoes just didn’t understand. And to be honest, I didn’t. Not until now. I didn’t understand what kept her going, working menial jobs, while still trying to make demos or still trying to figure out how to make it in that industry. I have never looked at the reason that she did not finish school, did not get a “typical” job and did not give up on her dream. But I see it for what it is now.

Passion.

She has true passion and desire and LOVE for what she is trying to accomplish!!! Not many of us can truly say that we have that in terms of our chosen profession. I damn sure can’t. My profession is a means to an end, not a reason to rise each day. I mean I “kinda like “ it, but she LOVES her chosen profession. She has that . And I honestly can say I wish I did. Now, I know that most of us have not been fortunate enough to have the support to just “follow your dreams” even if those dreams aren’t turning into dollar signs cause errry’body gotta eat But she has been fortunate enough. Shouldn’t life not be about what you do to to get by, but about what makes your heart sing? Should life not be about. Making your dreams come true if you can?

I used to resent her refusal to go into the corporate world because I thought her selfish. Selfish because she and her husband could have so much more if she just had a good job, her mother wouldn’t have had to sacrifice to help her out in addition to taking care of herself. But the one thing I never thought about is that the people who have been supporting her financially have also supported her dreams. And that also is worth it’s weight in gold. She didn’t hold them at gunpoint, she didn’t force them to help. They did it because they BELIEVED in her. She has a husband who , knowing that this was her dream when they MET supports her following her dreams. She will be 35 this year and she JUST enrolled in a dramatic arts school in NYC. How many husbands would support that and how many people would have the courage to go for their dreams in this way. It takes a WHOLE LOT OF SACRIFICE and a HELL OF A LOT of courage to reinvent yourself and keep moving when you have not had doors open up the way that you thought you would have at this point in your life.

So, not instead of privately scoffing at her “chasing a pipe dream” I now admire and envy her for going AFTER her dreams. Isn't that what we tell our kids to do (go after your dreams….you can be anything….blah, blah) but as soon as they do, we admonish, chastise and sometimes belittle their dreams depending on what they are? The real world is a hard place and we do that out of concern and care. I know that. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could ALL just go after what we WANTED to do instead of what we HAVE to do?? Going after your dreams isn’t always easy, but if you can do so, why wouldn’t you want to go after something that makes you happy?

I would.