I’m listening to Ella Langley’s “Loving Life Again” – when I hear this song, I feel at home. She grew up in place close to me. Hope Hull and Lowndesboro are basically the same place. Hooper and Lowndes were rival schools. I moved to Auburn at thirteen. She went to Auburn for College. My brother played music with her before she got famous. I moved to Myrtle Beach in later life. She came to play at House of Blues. According to my brother, whose tales are often far fetched but based in truth, he is still friends with her on facebook and went backstage at her concert.
My family is one of those, “brushes with fame” families. We know somebody who knows somebody, not that it ever did anything other than get us access to cool places to see how the other side lives. Mom was a hairdresser who once did hair for Tina Turner, and for the Governor of Alabama. She had her hand in a political scandal, exposing some corruption. I ended up in the National Press Room rubbing shoulders with rich and powerful people because I dated a guy who got invited and wanted to hit the open bar. I know the bullhorns guy from January 6th. I also know a magician who won America’s Got Talent.
The list of name dropping goes on, but it means hardly anything other than that we come from small towns but live interesting lives.
Mom and I have conversations about it often.
We’re so connected – but not in a nepo-baby way, in a “the world is your oyster” way.
She always encouraged us as kids to go for whatever dreams we desired. It could have been me in Ella’s shoes, had I followed my fourteen year old self’s dream to be a Pop Sensation. I, however, chose other pursuits.
Still pursuing, actually. Honestly? Going in circles, debating which path is the one. Unfortunately, people who subscribe to this mentality either hit something that sticks to the wall once and it launches them to the moon, or they just meander around half-chasing dreams until they get to their death bed and look back like, “I missed so many opportunities.”
I have had opportunities; I just didn’t like what they would cost me.
I have blown opportunities, because I couldn’t afford the energetic price to get through the door.
We attract what is meant for us. We attract what we’re open to.
Limiting belief systems tend to get in the way – of which I have many.
First, my relationships with health and wealth are terrible. I loved addictive things, (drugs, junkfood) and I loved impulsivity (spending rather than saving, short term goals rather than long term), which could be contributed to my Bipolar, but I won’t give it all the credit.
My own self-destructive behavior and procrastination kept me from chasing the dreams I was probably meant to follow.
This isn’t a pity party. Everyone has their day in the sun. If someone is reading this, I’ve had mine, with probably many more to come.
I have so many writings; so many that have been lost to time and bad organization or outdated technology, some that I still have, untouched and unread, some that live on various fragments of the internet, some in my own handwriting in journals.
I always imagined that if I died, the people I loved would read them and publish them for the world, as per many requests I have made.
Why wouldn’t I be able to do it alive? Because I would have to confront my fear of being seen, and I would have to try very hard not to explain myself.
Something else that’s wrong with this picture though is that I would not be able to explain it. I would not be able to articulate the context, I would not be able to finish the creative vision. I would not be there to brainstorm the ending to all the unfinished works, or give the extra behind the scenes commentary that authors usually love to give. I would not be able to finish the unfinished thoughts, to elaborate further.
So, the answer? Not to blindly panic about how much time is left, or what I have done with my time previously. Instead, to just keep making choices on how to spend the time I have now. I just have to keep pouring out what feeds my soul. I just have to keep seeing that the world is my oyster. I just have to keep throwing at the wall until something sticks.
I have to be seen. I have to share myself in order for that to happen.
So, I share.
Leave a Reply