Hello ♡,
My youngest daughter has filled our house with the most passionate singing since she was about 3 years old. No training, no lessons, all heart. Picture Adele, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna songs with passion coming out of the bathroom as she brushes her teeth every morning. It fills every room floating from her little lungs to the rest of us.
The school talent show came up, and having never sung in front of anyone outside of close family and friends, she considered passing it up. But she decided to go for the tryout and discovered: “it was so fun, I want to do this every day.”
The week of the talent show she was the sickest she has been in a couple years, the timing was so sad, but she persisted and let it be what it was as she was on antibiotics and an inhaler. Her nervousness grew as the day approached. Her little voice cracked and she cried after the rehearsal because the song she chose was hard and started fast.
The day of the talent show, she put on the red high top converse - the base for her outfit. Her big brother had found her outfit to match on Amazon as we all looked as a family. It was perfect.
She went up on that stage in the dark with a mic, and waited for them to play the music “Girl on Fire,” by Alicia Keys, her song and her heart. The cheers were so loud she calmly had to ask them to restart the song because she couldn’t hear the music. And then she was in it. Her voice is deep and beautiful, and strong. And as the chorus came she stomped her foot and belted out the lines, throwing her little head back, the crowd all cheered.
The mom next to me said she cried. It was really moving, I cried too.
The kids get to sit with their parents when they’re done, and in the dark she came running towards me and crawled up in my lap, all legs, arms, and converse. She felt so little all folded up in my lap as I held her, so small after filling the stage.
She whispered to me: “I did it.”
“Yes you did.” I told her, hugging her close, as her brother and sister raced down the aisle from working the concession stand to congratulate her, two of her grandparents leaning in to love on her.
The following week she looked at me and said again, “I did it.” It has become her summary of the event. Not how well she did, not what people thought, not anything except, “I did it.”
A few days ago she walked over to me from the kitchen table, where she was building a Lego house, and said to me again, “I did it.”
And then she said, “That’s the first step in me making my dreams come true, I did it.”
And I felt her timeless, little old soul wisdom in that. The first step in making her dreams come true came down to: doing it.
We often overcomplicate the steps in following a dream or calling, and sometimes they can feel too big or too hard. But sometimes, the only thing to do is to do the next thing. Lace up your converse, and just show up. Whatever it is for you today - your dreams, ideas, hopes deserve to be shown up for. And I hope however big, small, or scary it feels, you can whisper to yourself, to God, to those around you, “I did it,” and feel that much closer to making your dreams come true.
With you,
Monica
❤️Thank you to all of you for the loving notes, texts, emails, and messages here about our dogs, they were all felt and I am grateful. They continue to heal! These weeks have not been without other surprises, but we are grateful that is over!
Let's goooooo bruh! I just love her! What a great story!
She did it!❤️❤️