Life Lessons From a Country Song and Walt Disney

I just heard a song today that took me back. Songs do that so often for so many of us. This particular song took me back to almost 8 years ago. I was getting divorced from my first husband and had a rare girl's night out with some friends from high school. We went to a local club and this song came on. We all sang at the top of our lungs. Not because it was a new song at the time...it was already 7 years old by then. We sang with it because we were remembering "back in the day" in high school. The ironic part is the song is about nostalgia.

As I listened to the song, though, it took me back to the time at the club singing on the top of my lungs with my girlfriends. I only still talk to one of the girls that was there. She was a dear, dear friend from middle school on. We really only have contact through Facebook now but it's enough that I know generally what's going on in her life and she in mine.

When we were kids, she wanted so desperately to be a marine biologist. She loves animals. And she could have done it and would have been awesome! She is really smart. She is currently teaching pre-k in a small town near where we both grew up. She is married and expecting her first child soon. I'm so happy for her and I know she is happy with her life. But at the same time, I can't help but wonder why she isn't a marine biologist. Is it because her family life required her to take a bigger role in her sisters' lives? Is it because she had a serious relationship at the time she started college so she stayed close to home instead of traveling to a coastal city? Is it because someone along the line discouraged her? I may never know.

And of course, when I wonder all this, I'm not so much wondering about her or her life goals and dreams as my own. I think about why I am where I am now and why I'm not fulfilling what I wanted when I was a child. I'm working on it but there are days I feel like my late start is hopelessly late. I wonder if my commitments to my family of origin and my family will deter me. I wonder if my location and ties to it will stop me. I wonder if someone along the line will dissuade me.

Please don't misunderstand me. I LOVE my family (both of origin and my little family of my husband and 2 children) and don't regret having them in my life at all! But I do wonder if I couldn't have been further in my life path by this point if I had had my head on straighter. And honestly, I think my husband has provided some of the stability and comfort in which I've been able to figure out or remember what I want to do when I grow up.

But on days like today when a song takes me back, I think of the dreams of childhood and wonder how possible they still are. I read a quote on a kitschy plaque this weekend that was a quote from Walt Disney. It said:

If you can dream it, you can do it.

And I want to believe it. I've got big dreams, guys. Now to prove I can do it.

I know there have to be so many others like me out there who are just going with the flow in life but have finally realized what they want to do in life. Please find a way to follow your dreams. I'm telling you now that if you can dream it, you can do it!