Okay, well that’s not entirely true but…
Oh my God – Oh my God – Oh my God! I saw Joan Jett in concert on Monday night and SHUT UP!
Because I can’t even contain my inner everything – from my inner child to my inner teen-angel, to my inner-lesbian and inner-mom. Seriously.
Childhood fantasy realized – check!
Also – The weirdest thing happened during and after the show.
I thought. Deep thoughts.
Not just thoughts about what an amazing couple Joan and I would make if she would just give me a chance, because I don’t even mind that she never seems to talk and is almost always on tour.
Not just thoughts about how I clearly missed my calling of being an immortal punk-rock-star stuck in an irrelevant time warp forever but with a look that is both timeless AND the perfect blend of New York femme & butch.
Not just thoughts about how jealous my own 13 year old self would have been, 32 years in advance, had she known that this night was going to happen.
I thought about what I would tell her if I could go back in time.
Her being me. at 13 years old. And again at 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 years old.
And here’s what I would tell her/me.
Hey kid! Being a grown-up isn’t a real thing! Seriously! Even the ones who wear suits and ties, are
immature loonybins with bad-choice related drama and insecurity all kinds!
Don’t worry about what you’re supposed to do. just dream huge and go for it. All of it. But make it count.
Don’t just sing for your friends when you’re drunk.
Don’t just go to community improv classes at the adult education centre.
Don’t just write in your dear diary that you don’t know what you want to be because all you want to do is sing and write.
Sing and write!
Do what you love, like you mean it. Go all out. Sing and dance and write and act and do it so big and loud that nobody can ignore you, no matter how hard they try.
Go big kid, for real. Because it’s the only way. It’s not going to fall in your lap.
You don’t have that magical look that the producer just couldn’t put his finger on until you casually and extra slowly walked by that film set.
None of the 8 people in the open mic audience are agents, chomping at the bit and ready to discover and mold you into electro-accoustic folk-chick superstar material.
Grab your passion by the balls and run with it… or them.
And if none of that works, and you wake up on your 40th birthday and you’re still nobody, you’ll still have plenty of time to go to school and get a degree in social work, administration, or real estate, like every other middle aged empty-nester blocked artist does.