dream on.

Here are some of my answers to that quixotical question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" as answered when under the age of, oh, let's say 22 (in no particular order):

1. Attorney for the ACLU

2. Professional ballerina

3. Environmental attorney

4. Children's book author

5. Lead singer in a folk-rock band wearing a short flippy skirt

6. Self-help author's publicist

7. Architect (short-lived but made for incredibly in-depth Lego play times)

8. Essayist and published author

9. Fun, but demanding (and yet inspiring!), community college Political Science professor

10. The Boss.

If you are laughing (or scratching your head), know that I'm none of these things. As John Lennon prophetically said, "Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans." Along the way, the work in my life became more about satisfying objectives than realizing a dream. Paying the bills, meeting or exceeding work-specific expectations, developing a schedule that is compatible with being a wife and mother, taking on jobs that meet the needs of those I am responsible to and for, etc. I'm not terribly upset about this, but I am curious as to what happens to the ideal of those dreams and can you change or enhance your course? How do you realize your potential or direct that into the pursuit of your calling? How important is it to realize our potential? How powerful could it be to just pursue our potential?

The word potential intimidates me. A standard definition states something to the effect of: the inherent capacity for coming into being. And further: likely, expected to become or be. So our potential is there, right there (!), and it's likely to develop or is even expected to do so. That feels so optimistic! During my senior year in college, with dreams running through the pages of my journal and much-talked about over beers on Thursday nights, I dipped my toe in that discussion about potential and it led to an appearance on Oprah. Sadly, not by me, but a promotional coffee mug was provided. Again, sadly, not to me. Yet, I am the catalyst in that story line and it does have relevance.

Sometimes, in order to inspire my writings in the aforementioned journal, I would address the entries to someone. I wrote one to Oprah. It was mailed to Oprah (not by me, strangely enough) and Harpo Productions called me. They were doing a show on college grads giving up their degrees to pursue their calling, á la the movie, "Reality Bites" and they wanted me (ME?!) to be on the show. This was amazing! I envisioned a handful of my best friends and I lined up on Oprah's couch, smartly dressed and sounding like the hope of this new generation of grads. We would be flooded with fan mail and our return letters (we would write to every fan personally of course) would be poetic and inspired. We would have Fortune 500 companies sending us job offers and we would spend all of our vacations together in villas perched high above rocky international coastlines, starting with Italy.

WHOA! What did she just ask me? Ugh. Dream is evaporating. Typical me, I told her a story about another friend of mine who gave up his Princeton degree to pursue a career in professional tennis. They want him now, not me. I told her I couldn't get a hold of him (this is before mainstream use of cell phones) but, being the helpful person that I was, I had a back-up. I had another friend that was giving up a degree in accounting to play music full time. Would that suffice? It did. A few weeks later, I saw the episode. My friend (the would-be-accountant/musician) was not on the show. What happened? All that inspired dreaming for nothing? A recent grad-turned-kayak instructor was all that I remember. Come to find out (months later) that the featured kayak instructor was a friend of my friend. Figures. That friend of a friend got a trip to Chicago and a seat on the couch. My friend got an Oprah mug. Me? I guess I have the story.

Neither the musician nor the tennis player made a career out of those pursuits. That might make for a less-than-inspired turn of events in this story, yet it's a very real and common occurrence. That pesky thing called real life intervened. Can it be enough if you don't make a livelihood out of it? Is that truly realizing your potential if the mighty dollar doesn't come far behind? The tennis player is now an attorney and has a new baby. The musician and I are Facebook friends (figures, right?) He still plays, but not as a career. It left me wondering...are those examples of unrealized potential? I don't think so. Certainly they were, at the very least, in the pursuit of their potential and isn't there incredible value there?

Recently I had the immense pleasure of being introduced to a fantastic group of chorus opera singers. They sign on for an entire season, are paid and are card-carrying members of a local performers' union. This is a serious commitment of invested time and talent. They have accomplished day jobs too. There's the director of worldwide health initiatives for the largest software company in the world and a PhD candidate in neurobiology working on theories around the Circadian Rhythm and the eye, just to name two. This is a fascinating group of people who are realizing their potential, professionally and personally and, mulled wine aside, it set my brain afire once again.

Today, I am asking myself...At 37 years old, what is my potential? Are there things on that young dreamer's list above that I can still aspire to do? Do the endeavors have to make me money? Do I care at this age? I am ready to explore that. I am thinking about these things now. My life is no less complicated (and in some ways, it's even more complicated than ever before) but I am feeling awake. I am listening to myself and carving out windows of time to tap into that potential. Not just with writing, but with thinking, learning, exploring and being open to new ideas. It has been amazing. This pursuit of my potential is opening up fantastic opportunities and I feel like I am finally getting my shot on Oprah's couch. THIS is who I am. This is what I have to say and these are the kinds of things I am interested in exploring. Life may be what happens to you when you make other plans, but I've got Aerosmith blaring right now and I think I'm going to "Dream On!"