Dreaming

What exactly is a daydream? My dictionary defines it as ‘absent minded dreaming while awake’ or ‘having dreamlike musings or fantasies while awake’. Is that what I do a majority of the time? Most likely; because it fits. I do fantasize that my life would be different somehow. In a daydream, I can do anything. In a dream I can do anything. When I listen to songs that are easy to sing to, especially in the car driving home, I belt out the lyrics and am sure to hit all the right notes, because somehow, I’ll imagine myself standing on a stage, lights in my eyes and an audience listening to me singing. And no one is grimacing. No one’s bored. Instead, they’re listening, and for some reason, they are intent to listen. Like me singing is going to change something.

But that’s just a daydream. If I did somehow work up the courage to even audition for something in which I would be singing either by myself or with an ensemble and happened to actually reach that stage of making it to those white lights shining in my eyes so I can’t actually see anything, I’d shake through half of the song before I felt comfortable up there with people staring at me.

When did this happen? When did I become so terrified of people? When did others possibly judging me become a problem? I can’t pinpoint any specific time, date, or even year. I almost wish I could, because that would just sound cool. “It all started midmorning on Sunday afternoon in the cold of November when someone scoffed at me singing and said I was atrocious”. Only instead, I just have vague memories of having a small solo in a musical at church and a few solos that were normally shared throughout my career in elementary school and middle school. And I know I wasn’t always terrified. I have a very vivid memory of me, probably at the age of like, six, (woot! I can remember back to when I was six! ROCK ON), singing to an old folks home with my dad playing the guitar.

He hasn’t played that guitar in years. I wonder if he even remembers that he has it. I wonder if he can remember how to play it.

I want to live my daydream. I want to actually, one day, work up the courage necessary to sing a song and actually have people applause afterwards. But my time is running out. What can I do? High school, I just allowed myself to be part of the choir. Sure, I tried to get solos and get into the elite choir, and choked at auditions. I knew my choir director well enough to know he wouldn’t laugh at me after I walked out of the room, regardless of how I did. So why did I freak out and why did my heart beat faster like someone had gotten the cue to make the drum beat crescendo and speed up? What’s the point to me having this ability, (Which, by the way, I’m not 100% sure I actually have), if I can’t just go along with it and allow it to happen?

I guess I haven’t given this up yet to God. I guess I haven’t given any of it up yet. That’s a sad reality.

…I’m sorry God.