Pulling Threads (self fulfillment and success)

Are you happy with where you are?  Do you spend a decent amount of time saying or thinking I wish? Or better yet,  do you make excuses that "one day" you'll get too,.. ya know,.. when X and Y is done?

I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking this day.  I have also been doing a lot of fawning over last nights show. Ya see, Taylor and I were booked at a local production called SILK tease. Curated and produced by the incredibly spunky and hot burlesque and business tycoon
 Jacqueline Hyde.  It was a wonderful production with burlesque from around the tri-state area and music and hosting by Myself as my alter ego Mamma Mammaries and my partner in crime and light in my eye, Taylor.  In all of this fawning over last nights show, I began to think about how splendid it is to have my life. I wont say lucky because luck had nothing to do with it, I have worked my ass off to get here, but before i digress, it is splendid. I meet performers from all over the world, I travel, I stay up late singing, writing and playing songs. I have 5 totally awesome bandmates who have great hearts and are very accepting of each others little quirks. I have a mom and a sister that are very supportive in my endeavors as well as my job. I am free to be creative and think with out the restraints that a lot of our society does.  I have resulted to communal living with my band mates so I have very little worry about bills, I do not have a bank account, or credit cards, or a car  so I have very little financial stress. Granted I don't have health insurance,  other then yoga, eating a diet rich of fresh and fermented foods and Kombucha. I also don't have a retirement fund, but I don't ever intend to retire; I believe retirement is for people who typically don't like what they do because when you love your job, you don't work a day in your life.

Anywho, in reflecting on all of these things I began to think about the people that sit at home perhaps wishing that their life was something different then it was. People that may ask the questions or say the things I had stated above, I wish, One day, etc. Not that we shouldn't dream, its important to have goals, however the difference between "dreams" and Goals are action. This I know. Because of my action.......

5 years ago I was living in a grim little town which in some ways I love, working a day job, teaching nights and spending my off time drinking away my discontent at at random shows Id play at. I had a boyfriend who was in fact, a very good, hard working guy,... but we had grown apart and wanted different things out of life. I wanted to play music and travel, he wanted to work and have a "home life"
Anywho, for various reasons my days grew darker, at the hand of the death of my father, my various addictions and my constant need to be "dreaming" about a life I wished I had, I was hollow.
Until one day, something in me snapped,.....and not in the Michael Douglas- Falling Down kinda way, I just simply asked a very important question, the right question. "why did I have to live my life to societies standards, or to my boyfriends standard?" who exactly was telling me in order to be successful I had to work a 9-5 at a job I could only tolerate and plan my little excerpts of joy for vacations and yoga classes?  I knew other people were living the life I wanted cos there is all kinds of music and art I love and it comes from somewhere. I wanted it to come from me too.

So, I packed my bags, closed down my house, quit my day job and decided that from that point on I was making music my sole priority. Living for today with a healthy balance of still acknowledging the future, given i don't prematurely depart this earth. 4 years later,......... here I am, about to embark on a cruise to Jamaica not only with my band mate and partner, my boyfriend who shares the same drive, goals and passions as I do. I have put my eyelashes in 45 of the 50 states and will soon be making pans to leave this country.  I played along side amazing performers last night that are as driven and motivated as I am, I get to share the stages with people that put the same amount passion and hard work into what they do, as we do.  I see the world through my eyes and THAT is the most liberating thing I can say.
It makes me grateful everyday.  It makes me burst with love and compassion. It makes want to live long an healthy. It makes me want the people that want that as well, to find it.

So i challenge you to this,.... anyone that maybe reading this,...... ask yourself,. Am I happy?
What is success to me? what do I have to do to achieve it?
Perhaps theres some parts of your life you can look at and change the I wish I could, to I am going to and Im going to now. Or perhaps this just works for me and not for you and you think im blowing it out my ass lol. Either way, today I am happy and i hope you are too.