Have you ever loved something so much it encompassed your entire life?  You lived, dreamed, slept, ate and breathed it?

I did.

I was a musical theatre nerd.  For real.  As in, I didn’t even know any radio hits until I got to college and  met people who liked music that didn’t have Original London Cast and Broadway Cast Recording versions.  (This might be a slight exaggeration, but only slight.  My music collection was every Andrew Lloyd Weber production ever, and a myriad of other musicals including most of the Rogers & Hammerstein library, Showboat, Chess -London Cast only -, Godspell, etc etc).  

I loved singing, dancing and being on stage more than anything.  I took dance classes, had voice lessons, participated in every show in my high school.  I was ‘Glee’.  And I went to college for musical theatre.

Where I proceeded to spectacularly crash and burn.  There were a lot of factors, none of which are important enough to revisit fourteen years later, but my freshman year was a hot mess.  My sophomore year, I dropped from the musical theatre program to ‘just’ the theatre program, and proceeded to cut every part of musical theatre out of my life.

I’m serious.  I mean, I’ve never even heard the whole “Wicked” soundtrack, let alone seen the show.  My high school self would be appalled with me.

I have friends who have been on Broadway, and whose voices are gifts from God.  When they sing, you can’t help but be transported somewhere better.  I see their success and am so unbelievably happy for them.  And unbelievably disappointed in myself.

Which is why, when I discovered ‘Glee’ online last week, it wasn’t my best day.  I watched the season finale from last year, and the season premiere from this season, and I almost felt transported back to 1998 and all the good and bad of the hopes and dreams and utter disappointment that followed my own graduation from high school and matriculation at college.

I don’t have anyone to blame for my failure to pursue my dream except myself.  Somewhere along the line, I lost my confidence and my drive.  Looking back as a stronger, hardened-by-life adult, I can see where things went wrong for me.  It’s sad.  But it’s also life.  The thing that finally watching ‘Glee’ (I avoided it for a very long time for this exact reason) did for me was to remind me that at one point in my life, I had drive and passion for something.  I wanted something more, and not only did I want it, I believed I could achieve it.  I think that’s what makes the people who succeed get there ~ enough arrogance combined with self-confidence and blinders to keep on pushing when everyone is saying no.

I wish I’d had that.  But wishing doesn’t really get a person anywhere, does it? 🙂