Prove It

How Bad Do I Want IT - My Sunday Best #56

This week, we have family visiting from Pennsylvania. This is the first time one of Mickey’s daughters, who used to visit often, made the trek to our new home in Missouri. She also brought along a close family friend and her niece, our granddaughter, who is taking a break from her first year of college. She recently lost her best college friend to suicide.

Her heartache of loss brought back memories of a similar experience. It was my first year of college when my best high school friend was killed in a car accident. I also took a break from school but never went back. Sometimes, I wish I had stayed the course, but I was devastated. Instead, all I wanted was the comfort of home and family. The allure of conquering the world and doing great things suddenly vanished. It didn’t matter anymore. Instead, I married and was twenty-one when I welcomed my first child. I found a new purpose and immersed myself in the experience of raising a family of my own.

No regrets. I loved being a mom and did the best I knew how at that point in my young life. I went back to school years later with a different focus and determination. This time, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to write songs. Even though I wrote my first song when I was sixteen, I didn’t recognize this deep desire as anything to trust, listen to, or follow. Now I know better and sometimes do better. Learning to listen to my heart is an everyday process.

And the question I still ask myself after all these years is, “What do you want?” And “What are you going to do to get it?” It’s still so hard to decide. There are so many options. The familiar words ’Just pick something. You can change your mind later,’ float into my mind.

But how do I choose? Fortunately, I have expert help—my heart. I just have to listen and pay attention to those little pings I feel when I get close. Like I feel right now as I write. Yes, this is what I want—moments of joy, awe, laughter, love, and purpose. I’m still learning what I already know—I wrote this line twenty years ago in a song that never saw the light of day. My heart doesn’t forget anything.

At a gig on Friday night, a young girl came up to my husband, Mickey, and asked him about his guitar. She loved the color of his blue Telecaster. When he asked if she played, she said, “A little.” He offered her the guitar, but she declined and went and sat down with her family. However, he’s not one to give up when a young person shows interest, so he coaxed her back and convinced her to hold my acoustic Taylor guitar, which wasn’t plugged in yet. I’m guessing she might have been fifteen. Her mom said she suffered from bouts of anxiety, especially in situations of noisy crowds and the possibility of being singled out and called to the stage, which described the current situation.

As I watched her, I saw a deep truth, that for a moment, was stronger than her fear. She wanted to play the guitar. She proved it the moment she walked up to the stage and approached a stranger. Her mom said she bought her a cheap guitar until she proved that she really wanted to play. If she passes the test, her mom said she will buy something better for $200 or so. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how much our guitars cost.

I recently heard a similar story about LaDonna Gales. She plays percussion for her husband, the great blues guitarist Eric Gales. From the stage, he smiled as he told the story of when she was five years old and asked her mom for a tambourine. Her mom said no. However, she was relentless in asking. In exasperation, her mom gave her a pie tin and said if she could prove herself and learn to play on that tin, she would consider buying a tambourine. She shook that pie tin like nobody’s business and within days, proved herself worthy of a real tambourine.

Proving myself worthy is something I have attempted to do all of my life—worthy of love, money, comfort, recognition, and the list goes on forever. I see now that these experiences have all been great teachers in helping me identify what I want and what I’m going to do to make it happen. Some of these lessons have not been my finest moments, but hey, I learned something. Learning what I don’t want is an important part of figuring out what I do.

In a world with so many distractions and options, it’s a continual challenge to choose something and then prove it to myself with focus, determination, and small steps forward.

Today, I want to make potato salad and be present in hosting a friendly gathering. That is enough.