I know what I want from life. I’ve known what I wanted since I was 11 years old, running around the neighborhood with a tape recorder, recording people talking and then writing newsletters about their stories, around the same time I began following my dad’s lead by making up compositions on the piano.
I intend to be successful enough that I can spend most of my time on my creations.
Depending on your definition of success, I’m successful at spending the majority of my time on what I love.
I do have a “day job,” and because of county budget cuts I’m actually making less money than when I started working there almost a year ago in spite of a raise, but it helps me almost pay my bills. The rest I make through random freelance work I do for businesses and publications.
Since I don’t do drugs or drink or go out to see movies, preferring to spend every free moment working on my song EP (more in the works there, super excited!), and on writing, my social life kind of boils down to including only people I can communicate with on facebook or people who are involved with similar projects I am.
My best friend from childhood called me the other day and expressed a sadness that she couldn’t hang out with me, that I seem to have no time.
I told her that because I spent so many years avoiding my life through substances, prescribed pills, an eating disorder (believe it or not, I suffered from anorexia in my early twenties, when I got sober for the second time), depression, what have you, at age thirty I am, for the first time in my life, doing every single thing I want to do. I have a lot of interests. And I feel like I’m trying to make up for lost time.

This is what I did when my husband and I took a two-day "vacation." Good thing he thinks it's cute that I'm so focused.
I’m driven. I really want to succeed. And that doesn’t necessarily mean being a rock star or a literary super star, though I’d take either, or a combo of both. (I’ve always had a vision of somehow combining my music and my words in some sort of traveling performance.)
I am heartened when I see people continuing to pursue their music way into their later years, making a living off of it because they are constantly gigging.
I told my friend that I’m working on finishing my EP, writing some essays and stories I’m trying to get published, practicing for an upcoming kettlebell competition and level 1 certification in Hawaii, and I also have to work. Basically, if she wanted to hang out, she would have to come into my world.
And I apologized. I’ve known a couple of people who managed to be successful in a way that resulted in fame, and they were very myopic. Their relationships suffered as a result of their single-minded focus. I told her that I have that quality. If I didn’t check myself, make an effort to go on date nights with my husband, hang out with my friends once every couple of er…months…I very well would be exactly the same.
She wasn’t mad. She said good for you, for following your dreams. She told me a teacher in one of her college courses told her once that if you want to succeed, your social life will likely suffer, but not to trip on it. It’s a part of the process.
I like people, sometimes. I’ve been learning for the first time in my life to give people a chance. I’ve suffered from raging perfectionism my entire life. Growing up, my father would play a concerto on the piano, beautiful, seemingly immaculate, and after, he would point out the one note he hit wrong.
I do that same shit.
But I’m learning to be more forgiving of myself, realizing that my performances are not going to be absolutely perfect, though I can try to make them so. My stories and essays are going to be the best I can do when I release them into the world, but I might come back and wonder if I could have done better, once I’ve developed even further on the path. It’s the nature of art. Always progressing.
And because I’m being kinder to myself, giving myself a chance, I am able to understand other people better, give them a chance.
It used to be that if someone made a mistake, they were out. Done. The only people who I kept were those I’d known for a long, long time.
All this to say, basically, that I am going to succeed. I will continue to focus on these things I love, the things I’ve always loved. If I felt like I had any sort of calling in my life, it would be using my music and words to connect with others. Doesn’t sound like a huge deal, right? Connecting? But to me, it is.
Think about it. What books affected you growing up? What music took you out of yourself, made you feel not like jumping off a bridge while pushing through high school and your early twenties?
Imagine those artists never pursued their desire to connect, never put their music and writing out there for the world.
You might think I’m egotistical. You have to be a bit, to believe in yourself. Or maybe not. I don’t know. But if I don’t believe in myself, who the hell will? And maybe, more than that, I am simply determined and driven because I wasted so much time, because I was never ready to put everything into this before this past few years.
I know SO MANY people who just sit on their talents, not believing they have anything to offer the world. It’s as if since a slim chance of blowing up and becoming Lady Gaga is possible, they simply give up.
But the world is made up of the people we touch one by one. Most of us only have small groups of friends and family. We affect a few core people, and it trickles out. To others, for some reason, they touch a wider audience.
I told my husband yesterday when we were hiking outside that it could go three or more ways for me. I could continue to grow in a small, steady grass roots way, until someday, I have the ability to do live music performances full-time, making a living also by continuing to write, and I see this as my goal, cobbling together my talents to more than scrape by. Or, I could find the right people and suddenly blow up (less likely). Or, I could end up continuing to work at some day job to pay the basic bills, continuing to perform and write, always running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to make ends meet, trying to find enough time, dreaming about rewriting papers.
One of those things will happen. Im not sure which, but I am not going to stop trying to get my work out there. I won’t stop trying to make it better, to become in reality what I know I can be.
I remember reading Amanda Palmer’s blog. She’s Neil Gaiman’s wife, for those who don’t know. I found out about the Dresden Dolls when they headlined for Nine Inch Nails. Back then, I was writing music, but not at the level I am attempting now. I had something, but it wasn’t developed enough to be taken out into the world. It takes some of us a long time.
She was 28 at the time, and she’d been working on her music for years. Suddenly, she was on this big tour, being recognized for the talent she had believed in all along. And she said, “I’m glad I didn’t become this successful before I was 28. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t learned all of the things I’ve learned now.”
When I first saw her live, I felt chills up and down my spine and I rushed out immediately to buy her album after the show. I felt the same when I first saw my ex-boyfriend perform live. They both had that thing that you can’t explain, that thing that hits you in the guts, stops you in your tracks.
I feel like I have some of that thing, I’m not sure how much of it, or if it’s enough for a large group of people rather than a small group, but I aim to give a good live performance, to make people feel when they hear my music or read my words. To connect with that unnamed thing I know I have.
You could say I didn’t stand a chance, that growing up backstage while my dad performed piano for an audience made me hungry for that same ability to connect with people, something my parents both taught me to value.
And I understand what Palmer was saying. Our society focuses on youth. Youth sells. But the rest of us steady burners are banking on developing our talent to the point that we actually have something to offer the world besides our looks. (OK, I’d like to become a bit more popular while I’m still pretty, is that too much to ask for?)
Mostly, it boils down to dedication and hard work. It don’t come easy, none of this.




































