I am at work and very successfully procrastinating from starting an assignment that has needed my attention for a few weeks. I work in the legal field and there is always something so inherently important it has to be done NOW. Yeah, whatever, it's Monday and I just feel the need to do what I want for a change.
I am sitting in my office/cubicle/work-area listening to Faith Evans on my Ipod and I could sit here doing what I want to do for the rest of the day. I really need to get back to performing again, I have been thinking about it too much. I find myself on the bus or in the car and runs and licks go through my mind like a scrolling ticker. I haven't felt that way since my freshman year in college, which was ages ago. I am almost embarrassed to admit that stage fright has kept me from doing what I love for at least the past decade. I can reminisce on my 17 year-old self in college singing in front of groups and wonder what kind of gumption did I have then that I no longer have? I save my ministrations through song for the shower and my moments of silliness with the remote in the peace and quiet of my apartment. I never guessed that something as minuscule as fear would keep me from doing what I used to spend hours perfecting. God, I miss those days. I used to go to a rehearsal booth, interestingly enough, they had them at both schools I attended in undergrad. Those wonderful sound-proof rooms equipped with a piano and the best acoustics you could imagine. I would go in there for hours singing away the perils of the day. I realize now I don't have that outlet anymore and it is with a subtle exhilaration that I remember my days of crooning and preparing for what I thought would be a side-career of good old-fashioned Chicago soul-singing.
Instead I have spent the past decade working many days and nights for the benefit of others. I have to cringe a little at that thought. These years are blurred with too many days of not going out, working late, working weekends, spending weeks out of town for work, work, work! I sometimes feel like I take a nightly walk outside of myself. I look down on myself and see the fatigue, the wasted hours, the self-imposed coma I sometimes find myself in when I get home. No wonder, I have gotten out of shape, I expend too much energy working and not enough having fun. Lately though, that artistic side of myself that used to enjoy hours of singing and writing, has begun to rear its head. In fact, I even went as far as singing on video for my You Tube channel. Reminder: Erase that video before it falls into the infamy of the wrong hands!
I am laughing right now because when I was a 19 year-old self-made go-getter, I would tell anyone who cared to listen that settling down right out of college was for those not ambitious enough to go after their dreams. No, sitting at home watching soaps, eating bon-bons while breast-feeding was not for me. No, I am going to change the world, move to D.C. and take over Capitol Hill. Ah, to be young, naive and idealist. Reality sets in as you get older, and the things that used to be so important suddenly don't mean squat. In fact, the more I worked, the more I realized my dreams of Capitol Hill were just not what I currently want. Ambition is great when you have a goal and you go about achieving it. But, more than anything, I realize that with a changing society, I have changed. My goals and desires are different, and after tackling corporate America for the past seven years, I realize that I just want to do whatever makes me happy. I don't want to spend the rest of my life working just to make a paycheck, but rather spend it doing something I love! When I saw Common last fall, he said that hip hop was what he loved. It wasn't a stereotype to perpetuate or some road to riches and fame, but rather a constant love affair. I can respect that.
So, my quest in '08 is to do just that, the search for a new love begins...
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