the dirty laundry show

I have not spoken the following words out loud for 33 years, but here goes: I always wanted to be a famous singer. If I close my eyes tight, I can still feel the firm grasp of my little hand on the purple crayon hovering over a sheet of paper that said, simply, “Why does God want me to ______ for Him?”

I don’t recall why we were discussing future careers in Sunday school, but if I had to guess, it was likely meant as a personal application of “dreaming big,” like when David murdered Goliath. Or else it was a lesson in embracing God’s larger plan for us, a la Joseph and his technicolor dream coat.

Whatever the reason, I remember clearly my response. Without a moment’s hesitation, I scribbled in the word “SING.” All caps. No brakes. To those around me at the time, I’m sure it wasn’t any huge revelation. If you had a Saturday afternoon to dig into the boxes stored away in my parents’ sweltering Tennessee garage (and please, for the love of God, don’t), you’d find a cornucopia of VHS home movies filled with hoooours of me belting out songs.

Everywhere.

All the time.

At the playground, in the backyard, in the tub. Some were jams I’d heard on the radio or Broadway show tunes my dad loved. Others were just made-up ditties about the people and things around me.

I wasn’t angling to get attention (at least, not on a conscious level). I wasn’t overly concerned with how I would become famous. I didn’t even really care if I was the best at it. This was a pure and holy passion for song that overflowed from the unadulterated joy I found in making music. As a kid, that was the only concern of any import: is this fun? Then, by God, let’s do it!

Another decade saw me attempt, in stops and starts, to keep the music alive. I performed in school plays. Learned the basics of acoustic and bass guitar in order to join my youth group band. Holed up in my room for hours making mixtapes and scribbling down song lyrics. Slowly, though, I felt the magic fading away…

Because I wasn’t necessarily good at any of it. Actually, that isn’t quite the truth. I simply wasn’t the best at it. Somewhere around middle school, I began to really care about being the best. Surrounded by a wealth of talented peers at a high-achieving private school, I felt pretty damned average across the board.

In many ways, this worked in my favor. I didn’t stand out in any major way that could get me made fun of or ostracized. It also contributed to an ongoing struggle to define what I’m about (a struggle that I still wrestle with today, especially after losing myself to “mom-ness” for a period of years).

As you mature into adulthood, nobody ever asks you what you like to do for fun. Instead, they want to know what you “do” to earn money. How we spend our time to win our paycheck becomes who we are. The precious playfulness that proves essential to undertaking anything “just for fun” gets lost, abandoned out of a deep fear of looking foolish or the necessity of trading our time for financial stability.

If you aren’t the best, it isn’t worth doing. At some point on my journey, I internalized this fallacy as fact, and it has held me back from even trying. I silenced my innate curiosity and desire to play for so long, that at this point, I have lost the ability to detect any level of interest in anything. I’ve ceased to be curious. I treat fun like an agenda item, fabricated and formulaic.

My soul is slowly dying for lack of play. It’s been trying to tell me. But without a closely nurtured connection to its voice, the message has been terribly garbled. As a result, I spent the last several years turning over tables, quitting jobs, and upending relationships in drastic measures to seek escape from this crushing feeling of confinement and dull monotony.

All my heart wants is to play more. Balance the heavy weight of adulthood with some crisp, refreshing, no-holds-barred FOOLISHNESS. I don’t have to be the best. I don’t have to have a Grand Plan as to why an activity will benefit my life or bank account. I was created to create – not necessarily in service of commerce or capitalism but just because I f&cking can.

Stop putting fun on the back burner. Stop sacrificing play because it doesn’t measure up to the standards of logic and economic value that we prize so much. Believe me, it’s killing you. Embrace small ways of looking foolish. Break the rules and bust out of those self-administered expectations just a little bit. Creative play is not just for artists or youth. It’s who you are.

(By the way, I’m building an e-mail list in case I create something cool one day that I might wanna share with My People. Sign up here so you can hear about it first).