Don't Dream it's Over

 

It's never too late to make a dream come true. 

This particular dream was more than 30 years old, and it went back to my freshman year in high school.  I remember going with my mom and a few friends to see my high school's spring musical, which that year was Anything Goes. This was the first time I had seen a high school musical, and I was amazed. 

 

I had never seen kids my age singing and dancing on stage. Everything from the costumes to the choreography made an impression on me and it became something that I wanted to do. I didn't know how that was going to happen, but I had three years to figure it out. I needed to be on that stage performing with my peers. 

Three years came and went. My dream did not come to pass before I graduated from high school. I did end up on stage but as a musician in the band and orchestra, not as part of a musical ensemble. I remember some of my friends being part of a musical song review we had at our school, but I could never recall the name of actual musicals performed after Anything Goes.   

 

Memories get fuzzy, the older you get. All this time I thought it was just a matter of being too shy, which kept me from being on stage, but after talking to a former classmate of mine recently, I learned that our school didn't do any musicals during our time in high school, after our 9^th grade year. 

This made me feel a little better - knowing that it wasn't just my personality that kept me from making my dream come true. I had a lot to overcome during my high school years, including coming from a small Catholic school to a big public school and trying to make new friends. I also had a speech impediment that didn't quite improve until my junior year. At that time, I wasn't quite ready to put myself out there to possibly be ridiculed. 

My musical dreams did come true post high school. I made a pact with myself to try as many new activities in college as possible. I wanted a high school do-over and Pitt Johnstown was the place to be adventurous. Plus, by this time my braces were gone and  my confidence had increased. 

 

I signed up to be a DJ for our campus radio station and after seeing my first college play, I inquired about helping with the theater program. My involvement with the theater was mostly stage crew work, helping with props and costumes, but it did lead to two small roles. I played an inquisitor in Man of La Mancha, and I was Snow White in Into the Woods. 

 

I can count on one hand how many words I said on stage - two. (Well, two and a half if you count a yawn as a word.) But either way, I was thrilled with both opportunities and I felt I had accomplished one of the big dreams of my life, up to that point. 

A few weeks ago,  my dreams of being in a high school musical finally came true. I have been helping out for the past four years with my kids' high school musical productions. Ironically, my daughter and my youngest son have had big parts in recent shows. This year, I didn't have a kid in the cast, but I still volunteered to help with behind-the-scenes jobs. During one of the dress rehearsals, I was sitting in the audience, and I was approached by the director and led to a different seat. 

I knew there was audience participation in this particular show, Spamalot, but I didn't know what it was. I sat there nervously awaiting what I would be tasked to do. Towards the end of the act II, one of the student actors came down to my row and discovered an item the cast had been searching for. Then I was led on stage. 

 

The only line I had to say was my name, but considering the number of lines I had in my college productions, I was prepared to deliver. Looking out into the auditorium, I couldn't believe what was happening. As the cast members sang a brief song, I just took the moment in - my long-lost dream had come true. 

I was walking on air as I was led back to my seat. A couple people had taken a photo of my moment on stage, so there is proof this actually happened. 

Dreams don't always come true in the way we envision them, but they can resurface in ways that make us truly appreciate how amazing life can be. 

 

Photo courtesy of Amanda Rosco

  

*My blog is featured in The Valley Mirror each week in the On My Mind column. The Valley Mirror Newspaper covers the Steel Valley and Woodland Hills communities. *