I guess it takes years to settle into life. I still haven’t. Perhaps I’m on the path though. It isn’t quite the way I thought it would be. Through most of my youth I had dreams that (as an actor, and later singer) I would be “discovered” and suddenly have a successful career. Well, I’ve had lots of critical acclaim, but have never been “discovered”, and my career (although I love it) is a lot of hard work in between gigs. In the dream I never thought about all the hard work. I just saw myself going from job to job easily, effortlessly. In the past few years, unhappy with the jobs coming my way, I’ve been creating my own work. Writing songs, creating a CD, working on a second, producing and directing a film, collaborating on an improv show – it has all been work I’ve generated. And I’m in the infant stages of creating more work for sometime next year – aside from my second CD (which will hopefully be released early 2008). Part of what I’ve come to realize is how fragile life is. It is so delicate. It seems like it is not – but it really is. A person’s whole world can shift in a second. Six people I know have lost a parent within the past 6 months, and one of the six also lost a grandmother. Four of the deaths (all mothers) were unexpected and sudden – going to bed and not waking up, a walk on the beach and not returning, and a heart stopping suddenly in the kitchen. One of the women bought a TV the day before she died – living life not knowing her fate the next day. The lesson I take from that is to live life now. Not wait for my dream of life to arrive. It probably will never come – at least not the way I dreamt it. All I can do is go forward and try to make my way as I go. Life – this big, huge, powerful, forceful life – is gonna happen. Good or bad, one can’t fight it. All you can do is live and find joy that is right there, in front of you.
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